Saint Gabriel, Muhammad and Islam

SAINT GABRIEL, MAOMÉ AND ISLAMISM

Fr. JÚLIO MARIA, SDN

1. ^the Edition

1954

EDITORA "O LUTADOR"

Manhumirim - Minas - Brazil

lmprimatur

Caratinga, March 25, 1945.

João Cavati CM
Bishop of Caratinga LETTER OF THE REVMO. CENSOR, Fr.

ANGELO CONTESSOTTO, S-].
Municipality of Tijucas, Santa Catarina.

Your Excellency and Reverend Sir, Laudetur Jesus Christus.
After careful reading, I return to your sacred hands, with the nihil obstat to the impression, the solid and opportune work: São Gabriel - Moamé and Islam - of the late manhumirim, so sudden and tragically caught up in the journalistic struggle, at the end of December pp.
It is yet another proof of the great zeal that ignited the heart of the unforgettable apostle Fr Júlio Maria. This new posthumous trilogy, like the Bishop of Hippo, strikes hard at respecting those who make mistakes. There is no opponent who does not have something good. It is good for upright souls to see how the noble Author, in his testament, recognizes the good qualities in the enemy field, even though he is such a fierce opponent of Christendom. Nowadays, this beautiful example makes it extremely opportune to trample an opponent simply by his humble origin, showing him the feet of clay at every step, besides not being very objective, he is not very impartial.
God save you. V. Excia Revma.

By V. Excia. servant in Christ.
P. Angelo Contessotto SJ

S. Excia. Rvma.
D: João Cavati CM
Bishop of Caratinga Minas

PREFACE

The new book that "Editora O Lutador" now publishes is the last work of the late Fr. Julio Maria, who left a work as vast and multiform as only some Church Fathers left similar.
It is the last that came out of its flaming feather. The final pages were found on his desk when, on the tragic night of December 24, 1944, we introduced into his modest room one who was no longer of this world.
This book is, therefore, a precious relic, which we offer to thousands of readers and lovers of the work of the great Fr. Julio Maria. It may seem that your reading has no interest, for the subject you are talking about. In addition, published only nine years after writing, it seems even more that the book totally loses its raison d'être.
But this is exactly what lives up to our curiosity and admiration. It is a work that cannot and should not remain unknown, because the last one by an author so full of merits.

* * *

One might ask why it is only after nine years that such preciousness is finally published. These are the events that we cannot explain. We recognize that it was a real oversight of how many we continue to develop and propagate his wonderful work.
The death of the late author, in the circumstances in which it occurred, left us appalled and perplexed. It robbed us of our presence on many points. Nothing more natural. It would be necessary not to be children for it to happen differently from what happened. Thus, we believe, the lapse of having remained among old papers, until now, the originals of this book is fully justified.

* * *

We are afraid, after all, to say that the book did not lose but gained relevance with the delay of publication. It will now be more appreciated as a relic of a great dead man. It will be read with greater tenderness by those who, longing for his unpublished writings, will find him in these pages, as a redivive, treating a fright he had never dealt with, presenting himself in the always authentic garments of his alert and vibrant style.
If the subject is without application - because we do not have, I believe, Mohammedanism as a religious danger in Brazil, at present, - the historical background is always useful and continues to be interesting for all times. In addition, the exciting of the narrative, in the vibrant pen that makes it, takes on an incomparable shape. It feels like a historical novel.

* * *

However, this book about Muhammad is not a novel, since there is no fiction, creation and characterization of characters in the great plot of the narrative. It is not romance.
It is the true story, warrior, epic in certain trances, of a figure that left a trail in the religious fastos of the Eastern world. And this story is written with proficiency and charm.
There is always the theologian's hand in Fr. Julio Maria, who analyzes events in the light of faith. Describes, but does not simply describe. Analyze. Criticizes. Shows snags. And it also shows qualities, even in the supporters of error. This particularity of the talent of Fr. Julio Maria, once so well reflected in another parallel book - "0 CHRIST, THE POPE AND THE CHURCH" - reappears here with the same figure and certainty.
I do not hesitate to say that this book will have numerous readers and it is already out in the open with the assured triumph.
May he do in the souls the good desired by the illustrious Author.

ANTÔNIO MIRANDA, SDN.
Manhumirim; 5/20/53.

INTRODUCTION

I had never thought of writing, one day, the life of the founder of Islam, for the very simple reason of ignoring the existence of Muslims in our beloved Brazilian homeland.
A Brazilian vicar took the veil of illusion from me, writing that there is a poor number of Mohammedans in his parish ... families, indeed good ones, he says, but ignorant of the sect itself and of the religion of others.
He thinks that a succinct, clear and simple exposition of the life and doctrine of Muhammad, and of the Expansion of Islam, would be a means of enlightening Muslims and Catholics, giving the former an inconclusive proof of the completely human origin of their sect, and in the second, more conviction and firmness in the practical profession of his religion, the only divine one.
Such is the reason for the present work, which completes previous studies already published, on: "THE CHRIST, THE POPE AND THE CHURCH", "THE DEVIL, LUTTER AND PROTESTANTISM"; and now "GABRIEL, MAOMÉ AND ISLAMISM".
Muhammad attributed his revelations to S. Gabriel; this is why the Archangel appears here, in nonsense, beside Muhammad and the sect he founded.
May these lines project a ray of light over souls and direct them towards the truth.
It is the author's only aspiration.

P. JÚLIO MARIA, SDN

CHAPTER I

ARABIA IN THE TIMES OF Muhammad

In order to understand Muhammad's action, it is important to know the environment in which he exercised his activity as a reformer.
Arabia is not only populated by Arabs, as not all Arabs reside in Arabia.
There is no Arab race, just as there is no Christian race. Before Muhammad, there was a nomadic, fiery race, always at war, which was gradually modified by the mixture of other nations, so that today, it is difficult to find the authentic type of Arabic of yore.
Western Asia advances from Syria, towards the Indian Ocean, having the shape of a vast trapezoid, connected to Egypt by the Suez isthmus, bathed to the west by the Red Sea and to the east by the Euphrates. Here is Arabia.
This country, whose traditions go so far, that merchants travel and that has provided countless legends and narratives to poets and historians, is still poorly known today, due to the fanaticism of its inhabitants.
The Arabs do not use a family name, but are distinguished by their father's name, preceded by the particle "BEN". The prefix "ABU" means possessor.
Fiery as his steed, sober as his camel, the Arab is superstitious, bloodthirsty, but generous to his friends. Revenge passes from generation to generation and is part of their religion, so that the sectarian rarely forgives an offense received.
The language of the Arabs is lively, picturesque, expressive. His imagination, alive and fruitful, and the enthusiasm of his passions, make him prone to poetry, a hodgepodge of verse and harmonic prose, to which a flexible and rich language offers a large copy of rhymes.
Poetry was considered by the Arabs as divine inspiration, and it is worth noting this particularity that lends a glimpse of truth to the views of our hero Muhammad.
When a poet revealed himself in the tribe, friends were invited to a joyful banquet, and the new glory was proclaimed at the sound of the trumpet.
Arabic poetry, instead of being a work of art like ours, or being animated by mystical fictions like that of the Greeks and Indians, is the spontaneous expansion of burning passions, impetuous desires, impulses of love or revenge. It feeds on parables, riddles, sentences, through figurative language and unruly images.
According to traditions, the Arabs are descendants of Shem, by Heber and Katan, and Ishmael, son of Hagar; in this way they claim to be descendants of Patriarch Abraham, having in the beginning the same religion and traditions as the Israelites. Like them, they were circumcised and believed in the existence of one God.
In the course of time, they fell into idolatry, worshiping, in addition to God, the stars and the intelligences that direct them. They prayed three times a day: at sunrise, with eight adorations, prostrating themselves three times each; at noon and at night, with five adorations.
It being his tradition that, having the parents of the human race seen in paradise a house before which the angels prostrated themselves in worship, they wanted to imitate it on the earth, and Abrahom or Ismael built in Mecca, by its model, the CAABA, or square house, sanctuary across Arabia.
The black stone was kept in this Kaaba. primitive core of the earth, they say, once a flaming ruby, which, falling from Heaven, illuminated all of Arabia with the flashes of dawn; this stone has gone out and blackened, as men became perverted, and it will only shine again on the day of judgment.
The devotees went on pilgrimage every year to visit this sacred house, around which they circulated seven times in rapid step, kissing the stone seven times and touring the surrounding mountains.
Arabia, before Muhammad, did not know any political or religious union.
The tribes of the center and of the north, whose group formed the Ishmaelites, were attached to the old Semitic paganism.
The southern tribes (Yemen) were for a time ruled by an Abyssinian Christian dynasty and belonged to Persia, at the time of the prophet. There were plenty of Christians and Jews there. The center belonged to the nomadic tribes, almost exclusively pagans.
The capital Mecca, due to its former sanctuary, the Kaaba, was the most important religious and commercial center.
A large pilgrimage and a national fair brought together the country's various populations. There were a number of Christians there, while plenty of Jews populated the neighboring city YATRIB, later called Medina.
Arabia had several Christian bishops, and counted a good number of martyrs in times of persecution that it had been through. Christianity, however, did not come to be implanted in the whole country, it was located in the northwest and southwest regions.
What is the God that was worshiped in the Kaaba? The orthodox Islamist tradition says that it was ALAR, the only God.
It is certain, however, that, beside the one God, idols were worshiped, among which the Moabite deity Hubal and the three deities: el-Lat, el Ozza and Mariãt, who said they were children of Alah, of the one God.
Kaaba was, in this way, a true polytheistic sanctuary; certain traditions claim that there was also a tribute to Jesus and Mary.
In that interpenetration of pagans, Jews and Christians, a religion had been formed which was no longer any of the original three, a kind of eclecticism in which pious beliefs and practices were taken or rejected, according to particular tastes and dislikes.
It is in this environment steeped in superstition and half-religions that Muhammad, the great reformer of the nation and the founder of Islam, should be born.
Arabia was ripe for a religious revolution, of which Christianity had, to some extent, facilitated execution, with only the right man to take the lead.
The same phenomenon, incidentally, happened with all religious revolutions.
Luther appeared at the time when divided Germany, given over to passions and exaltation, wanted to shake off the yoke of authority. Outside that time, Luther would have been just a communist.
Muhammad, likewise, appeared at the time prepared by the lack of a certain, well-known religion, when everyone felt the need for firm and sure guidance.
If the Christian Church had had a wider and deeper expansion, strong enough to form the spirit and guide the souls of the Arab populations, Islam would not have avenged, or would have remained only as a regional sect, as the new sects are today. Protestants, invented at every step ..
Here the history of Islam will begin, with the appearance and activity of Muhammad, who will say "the prophet of God", inspired by Archangel S. Gabriel, who knew his name and office, by contact with Jews and Christians.
However, it should be noted that S. Gabriel has nothing to do with Mohammed or with the alleged revelations that he attributes to him.
The glorious Archangel in the Muhammad system serves only as a hook to attract and a veil to cover what belongs to man, when that man wants to attribute it to God.

CHAPTER II

FIRST YEARS OF Mohammed

The traditional date of Muhammad's birth is the year 570 after Jesus Christ. The early childhood of the future reformer is shrouded in the somewhat transparent veils of history and legend.
Born in Mecca. His mother Amina, already a widow, was of mediocre condition, despite being from a very opulent family. After 6 years, he died, leaving the son in complete orphanage of father and mother.
Amina's father, named Abdalah, belonging to the group of Hachimites, an important fraction of the Kororaites, took in the orphan he intended to educate; however, having died shortly afterwards, the boy was left to his uncle Abon-Talib.
These details are revealed to us by Muhammad himself in his Quran, where he says to the angel Gabriel: Weren't you an orphan and God didn't take you in?
He found you astray and guided you!
He found you poor and enriched you!
Abon-Talib educated the orphan with great affection.
Not being rich, he was unable to give his adopted son a thorough education, but he oriented him towards commerce, his own line of life.
The boy was intelligent, an observer of things and facts, and visibly inclined to religious practices.
Of a serious, thoughtful, dreamy character, he did not enjoy loud parties or prolonged conversations.
He felt a propensity for solitary life, for dreamy poetry, for the mysticism of loneliness, which his fiery imagination filled with invisible beings.
He was not, as has sometimes been intended, a patient, an epileptic. On the contrary, he felt in himself a fiery, overflowing life, but full of obsessive spiritualism, which placed him far above the noisy materialism of his countrymen.
His uncle esteemed him very much, and he always took the boy with him, admiring at the same time his precocious intelligence, his thoughtful and serious nature, his impeccable social skills and the depth of his observations and words.
As an untrained merchant, Abon-Talib, he did not even remember to cultivate his nephew's spirit, but he thought only of training him for commercial life. He participated in the large caravans that regularly went to Okad, in Syria, through the immense deserts and valleys of Oued Rouma and the Dead Sea.
It is said that, on one of these trips, the young Mohammed would have found a Christian Bishop, Gous ben Saido, Bishop in Nejran.
He was a white-bearded elder, who for many years was the great apostle of the desert and the arbiter of the Arabs. Mounted on his camel and without another pulpit besides the arched back of the animal, he spoke and instructed the people around him with veneration; he took for witnesses (as the Qur'an will do later, in which several surahs offer with these sermons a striking resemblance, even in words) the sky, the sea, the night, the stars.
The young Muhammad, with a poetic, ardent soul, drank the sublime words of the Christian Prelate, which deeply impressed his spirit and imagination.
Bishop Gous spoke to the crowd of warriors and merchants about the futility of glory and riches. He said, or rather recited, in the oral style of mystical phrases, which was then the form of eloquence: "O men, hear and understand: Whoever lives dies, and whoever dies has passed away.
What must be will be.
Dark night, constellated sky , Raging waves, sparkling stars.
Splendor and obscurity, equality and justice, Food and drink, clothing and mounts, What do I see? Men pass by and do not return, Will their beds be so pleasant, That they no longer want to rise?
Or, abandoned, do they have no one to wake them up?
Man is not limited to this world, he has another destiny.
His homeland is Heaven, the house of God, who created him in his image; We are on earth like rain, That God sends plants to fertilize.
Plants grow by preparing their fruit; We are these plants, the fruit of good.
The good we must do on earth is to offer God to remit our sins and obtain eternal reward from him. "
Thus he spoke endless hours, always developing and varying images, alternating them with sentences and proverbs, without upsetting the audience, who he loved these harmonious recitations, these pearls collected by a skillful
master.Many years later, Muhammad still remembered Bishop Gous preaching from the top of his camel, and sometimes asked Abou-Bakr to recite one of his speeches.
This was undoubtedly one of the first Christian influences he experienced.
Such trips, repeated several times, and in different directions, opened new horizons in the eyes of young Mohammed.
Active, intelligent, astute as he was, endowed with a pleasant exterior, with a fruitful imagination, with an easy and imaginative word, the young camel driver was winning the friendship of his companions and masters.
On long nights, lying beside his camel, Mohammed, a dreamer, sang, invented soft verses, which lulled the sleepers of caravans and excited the admiration of his comrades.
Among the great fortunes of Mecca, there was a widow named KHADID] A, of the Kororaite tribe, who had twice been married to wealthy merchants.
One of his employees was traveling with Mohammed and enjoyed this one. a sensible and honest young man, he recommended it to the widow.
The pleasant figure, the manly beauty, the straight face of this young man of twenty-five years of age inspired him so much confidence that she took him to his service.
Muhammad became the trusted man of the rich widow, driving his caravans across the entire peninsula. Khadidja's business was running wonderfully, to the point that one day, after an important successful excursion, the widow decided to marry her employee.
Muhammad, despite the age difference - he was 25 and the widow was 40 - accepted and, since this day, he has become, by his wife's fortune, a character of some importance in Mecca.
Tradition says that his home was happy and that Muhammad was always faithful to his consort. However, a visible change is taking place in him. Not a sudden change, but the result of a latent, reflected disposition, which waited only for the favorable occasion to manifest itself publicly: this change is the religious obsession and the ambition of power.
Without having a clear idea of ​​religion, of God and of the future life, Muhammad feels in himself an aspiration that he himself does not understand, but that impels him to a more complete practice of the truth ... But, what is the truth?
What you see around you is not the truth. The life that their countrymen lead is not within the truth.
The usurers swarming in Mecca and running the caravans are not really there.
The Bedouin thieves and anarchists, the unscrupulous adventurers, the dishonest businessmen. they cannot be in the truth: they forget something essential.
The idols who stand guard around the Kaaba are not real.
The god Hobal, with big beards and flashy clothes, soaked with perfumes, is not a true god.
How to know the true religion?
Is it that of the Jews, so powerful in Yatrib and the oasis of Hijaz?
Is it that of Christians, who hold a mysterious book that commands respect ... and whose chief he remembered - Bishop Gous, whose majestic figure had one as a reflection of Heaven, and whose word was so divine?
Muhammad appreciated these Christians on their travels.
Even outside Mecca they were quite numerous, especially among slaves from Abyssinia.
He is attracted to this religion, but he knows it very badly. He needed clarification: he sought him out, sometimes with a Christian, now with the Jews, now with the more sensible pagans, thus making a more extensive perception of religion in general, without, however, conceiving which religion true.
Alongside this aspiration for truth, the young husband of Khadidja, now a wealthy and powerful businessman from Mecca, feels called to dominate, to reform, to tear new horizons in the materialistic, narrow and selfish life of his countrymen.
The various tribes of Arabs were divided, always at war with each other, without finding a secure, dominant authority to guide them towards unity and progress.
All of this started to point in Muhammad's fiery imagination ... all this, day by day, was taking shape in his spirit. They were projects ... they were ideas! ...
distant, but not unrealizable.
And the young Arab thought, questioned, observed with an insistence and tenacity that was noticed by all those around him.

CHAPTER III

THE RELIGIOUS OBSESSION

Various opinions have been expressed on Muhammad's state of mind and spirit.
Some think he was a patient, a hysteric, epileptic, visionary. Such an opinion, although accepted by many and conveyed in several Muhammad lives, does not, however, seem to resist close observation and serious study of the life and especially of the wars of the Muslim founder. It seems to us difficult to coordinate the attacks, crises and debilitation of such an illness with the agitated, violent and tenacious life of the pseudo-prophet. In fact, his words denote reflection, intelligence, perseverance, tenacity, qualities that are not conceived by informing a sick personality.
It seems more logical to us to believe in Muhammad's sincerity. He had religious feelings, it cannot be denied, and even exaggerated feelings about that, deviated, it is natural, out of ignorance and the ideas of the environment in which he lived.
He was not literate; he himself confesses that he received no instruction. But he had a great spirit of observation, so that the experience acquired through practice, commerce and travel, gave him very clear and extensive notions about life, abuses and human misery and aspirations for an ideal superior to the complex that surrounded him.
Tradition has it that a cousin of his wife Khadidja, named Waraca Ben Neroval, was a fervent and educated Christian, so that, living for a time in the privacy of Muhammad, he must have given him a great deal of knowledge about the religion of Jesus Christ and the practices of piety.
The variety and difference of religions professed in Syria: Christians, Jews, pagans, fetishists, etc., had given the young Arab a false idea of ​​religion, as today, in Protestant countries, divided by hundreds of sects, the idea arises that they are men who make religion. And they do it according to the needs of the time, to root out abuses and develop a determined asset.
In such an environment, certain well-intentioned but ignorant men seize a certain fanaticism that excites a religious obsession in them and launches them into new ventures, or even makes them found new sects, as we still see among Protestants today.
It seems to us to have been the case with Muhammad.
He had a very certain notion of God, of his unity, of his providence, of the rewards and punishments reserved for men, according to his works; it lacked, however, and completely, the apologetic part of true religion. Comparing the religious notions acquired in the contact of Christians with the crude fetishism of his fellow believers, Muhammad deeply felt the absurd contrast, experiencing a strong repulsion to these fetishes, where everything was false and the notion of the True God was completely lacking.
By the year 610, tradition says, Muhammad's inner crisis was manifesting in all its fullness. He no longer supported the idea that the essentials lacked the religion of his people.
Each clung to his fetish, to the idol of his tribe and clan. They feared ghosts, who called the jins evil. They were neglecting the ultimate reality.
Muhammad's heart was detached from all these accessory ideas, disconnected from all forces that depend on another force, from all beings that were nothing more than a reflection of the One Being.
He knew it now, since he had learned it from Syrian and Mechish Christians: there was a revealed religion. Certain peoples had received divine orders, were depositaries of a truth; inspired men had spoken to them in the name of heaven.
Every time men were lost, heaven sent a prophet to lead them back to the true path, to call them to the unchanging truth.
The religion of the prophets of all times was one. Men disfigured it, but the envoys from Heaven always came to raise it.
The Arab people had then reached the height of the loss.
Was it not necessary for divine mercy to manifest itself again and to come especially to your aid?
These ideas plagued the generous Arab, became a real hallucination for him.
Why, and in what way, would the Arab people be inferior to other nations, to Jews, to Christians? If God was one, did he not rule them all with the same right and the same measure?
The Jews claimed to have received their prophets from heaven who, in the name of God, revealed to the people the will of Alah, of the one God ... The Christians claimed to have been instructed by Jesus Christ himself who was God, and they, the Arabs, wouldn't they also have a heavenly messenger, a prophet, an envoy from God, who guides them on the path of good and truth?
And Muhammad thought, wondered, meditated, made this argument unanswered. It was his fixed idea.
All his thoughts were concentrated on this idea, to the point of becoming unaware of everything that surrounded him.
More and more renouncing the coexistence of men, he spent hours and hours, sitting in the darkness or lying in the sun, or striding along the rocky paths of solitude where he was going to hide. He could no longer distinguish night and day, dream and reality.
After I know; months, Muhammad was broken.
He had lost weight. His movements became abrupt, his beard and hair in disarray, his eyes strange. He was enraged. Had he become possessed, an unfortunate demon possessed, hideous plaything of the power of darkness?
Would he have become - as unconscious phrases often come to his mouth unconsciously - one of those poets inspired by a jinn (evil spirit)?
He is exasperated, and exclaims: "I'm afraid of going crazy ... I feel the symptoms of the possessed in me!"
The first confidences were made to his wife Khadidja, who comforted and reassured him, but followed the march of her husband's unknown illness with concern.
Muhammad's strong belief was that there was only one God, governor of the world, that idolatry or fetish worship to which life and power are attributed was a gross error, and that each nation should have its prophet.
It was under the impression of this constant idea that one night, in a tormented dream, in the midst of a horrible nightmare, he seemed to hear a voice that said: Proclaim, in the name of your Lord Who created the man with coagulated blood; Proclaim, for your Lord is the most generous, It is he who taught man to use his pen, who taught him what man did not know.
It is Muhammad himself who quotes this passage in the Qur'an (Surah 96, 1-5).
These words left him in a horrible doubt, in a real death agony. He wondered if he was a victim of the jinns, or if it was a reality, an invitation from God.
Shortly afterwards, in another nightmare, Muhammad seemed to hear a new voice, which says he was from the Angel Gabriel, saying to him: Get up and warn men, Glorify your Lord, Keep your dresses pure And run away from abomination, No you want to pile up riches, And by your Lord, suffer with patience.
This second inspiration or obsession solved his doubts and made him firmly believe that God was calling him as a prophet of his people.
The big question that arises here, who examines the character of Muhammad, is whether he really was convinced of his mission as a reformer.
The biographers who studied the case are almost unanimously in the affirmative.
As a result of his state of mind, of his obsession, he believed that he was called by God to work for the moral uplift of his countrymen. Nobody and nothing authorizes us to suspect the good faith of this conviction (Lammens - Mahomet, fut-il sincere?).
Studying and penetrating the best historians of Muhammad and the original source of his doctrine, which is the Quran, one is convinced that he believed inwardly and a conviction of his mission, which was to replace the idolatrous cult of the Arabs, was formed for a higher and purer religion. (Schwally: Geschichte des Korans, I, p. 3).
Such a conviction was not limited to a spiritual reform, but, uniting the spiritual to the material, Muhammad thought to reform his nation, both civilly and religiously.
In that time and in these distant places, far from civilized centers and government organizations, the people always united, in their spirit, the religious question and the civil question, which was for them a unique question: that of a supreme authority.
Because of his religious obsession, Muhammad wanted to reform the pagan religion, being convinced of its falsehood, but, as he had ambitious aspirations at the same time, he also wanted to be a temporal, civil and military leader and to have complete, integral authority over the reformed people.
Religion would serve as a pedestal for civil power, and civil power would be a basis for the expansion of religion.
Not joining these two constitutive elements, we find in Muhammad's life a dualism, an inexplicable, radical transition; while, uniting them, everything is understood, everything is unified in a logical and natural synthesis.
Studying the Qur'an impartially, or even with a certain disbelief, one comes to the conclusion that Muhammad was honest and sincere at the beginning of his reform, driven by the desire to improve the moral, religious and material conditions of his countrymen.
The fundamental reason for this statement is that Muhammad, without personal conviction, would have been unable to inspire his first companions, proud and interested Arabs, a conviction so sincere that it would lead them to abandon their parents, wealth, country to associate with the poor and slaves. of the reformer's first entourage.
Such a conviction was not simply an enthusiastic exaltation at the moment, but for many years it has become one of the characteristics of Arabs.
Even when Heaven denied the promises and threats of its prophet, the adherents maintained the same conviction in their divine mission as a reformer.
Let us add to this the sincere and enthusiastic tone of the Mecca preacher, his perseverance in the face of the indifference and opposition of his countrymen, his moral character, still pure from the stains that will later deform him in Medina and in the successes he has achieved so successfully and firmness - and it is necessarily concluded by the sincerity of the prophet.
A convinced religious preacher, Muhammad was neither a socialist nor a communist - he was a reformer.
Some biographers exaggerate when they claim that Islam did not enter life as a religious system, but as a social trial to combat certain material abuses that prevailed at the time (Grinime: Mohammed, t. I, p. 14).
It must be recognized that Islam has done science an important service, drawing the attention of the sages to the social nature of Muhammad's preaching.
Economic considerations undoubtedly had a considerable influence on the first preachings of the alleged prophet, without however explaining their origin, removing their religious character.
In short, Muhammad used social conditions to promote his religious program, and later he will use his religious program to improve the social conditions of his countrymen (Lammens-Caetani Hartmann).
But how can one explain the fact that Muhammad believed in his divine mission?
He himself, in the Qur'an, speaks of a first vision, in which his vocation was communicated to him, and of a second, in which that was confirmed.
Now, if he was sincere at first, as we suppose, it is unlikely that such views were purely fictitious.
Let us explain them as we wish, either by hallucination - it is the general opinion - or by self-suggestion phenomena, they do not yet reveal the content of the Qur'an, which is a book above common intelligence, and above the ideas of a hallucinated.
Caetani, drawing on Goldziher's studies, seeks to explain everything by poetic inspiration (Annali dell'Islam, I, pp. 189-201). According to his opinion, in Muhammad's time, everyone judged poets inspired by the Jins. That is why contemporaries called him a poet, considering him all inspired by a spirit, but no one accused him of imposture.
The pseudo-prophet shared this general belief, but was persuaded by the very nature of these religious experiences, that inspiration came from on high and that the spirit that brought him inspiration was good and came from God - it was St. Gabriel.
What is striking about Caetani's explanation is the strange statement that no one, not even his enemies, keeps traces of such an accusation.
It is perhaps a lack of reflection on the part of this historian, since Muhammad himself, in his Qur'an, says he is accused of imposture in every way (S. 25, v. 5 - S. 16. XV. 103).
Another biographer, Noeldeke, (p. 121), asserts that most of the inhabitants of Mecca took Muhammad for a madman or an impostor: his revelations are considered to be liars, at the level of all visionaries.
They accuse him of having copied them from old books and of making them together with a foreigner (Christian or Jew).
In order to reject his prophetic claims, they exclaim: "He is a poet! .. he made them himself!"
This last quote shows us that Muhammad's contemporaries did not believe much in such poetic inspiration.
Caetani here committed an anachronism, and it seems that we are closer to the truth, admitting that Muhammad, believing in the inspiration of the diviners of his time, raised himself to the conception of a higher inspiration to explain his religious pretensions.
So does Noeldeke, (Ancient Arabe, Hastings Encyclopedy of Religions and Ethics, I p. 671).
Others seek to explain Muhammad's inspiration for epilepsy, catalepsy, hysteria and other nervous disorders. "Muhammad is a pathological case," says Maconald (Aspect of lslam, p.72)
It should be noted, however, that it has never been proven that Muhammad was a victim of such diseases. Traditions say nothing about this.
A stronger objection to this view is Muhammad's own doctrinal book, which cannot be the product of a sick spirit. In the Qur'an, in fact, there is a lot of forethought in the composition and a lot of method in the arrangement of certain surahs, a lot of skill in the use of foreign materials, a lot of opportunism in adapting the revelations to the needs of the moment, to admit that it is the work of an epileptic or of a hysteric, writing or dictating verses under the impulse of his imagination or his nervous nerves.
On the other hand, how could Muhammad's acknowledged sincerity be combined in the proclamation of his prophetic mission, in front of texts copied from others, premeditation, methodical composition and opportunism in the Qur'an?
Here are throbbing problems that arise for those who reflect and dispassionately weigh the mission of the new prophet.
The answer lies in the very character of Muhammad, who was from his time and his people, and he had necessarily inherited many of his defects and qualities.
He lacked the logical spirit and the clear sense of good and evil.
The Qur'an, as we will see later, is full of contradictions. Such contradictions come from the illogism and opportunism of its author: he was not concerned, but the needs of the present hour. He always followed his instinct, which he believed to be the voice of God, an idea that dispensed him from proving his faith.
Being convinced that he was the envoy of God, he no longer questioned his conscience: he took for revelation, not only the thoughts that arose in moments of religious exaltation, but even the ideas that he had consciously developed with materials from others.
He no longer distinguished between spiritual and material, between religion and politics, everything for him was inspiration.
Muhammad had an even more serious defect: the absence of a faculty of logical abstraction. His historian Schwally, who is very favorable to him, expresses the opinion of the sages who studied the case, saying: "He believed that everything that did not openly contradict the voice of his heart was allowed ... he did not hesitate to use perverse means, until of pious fraud, to spread his idea "(Geschichte des Korans, p. 5).
And what did this voice from the heart tell you? almost exclusively that he needed to preach against idolatry, to carry out his mission as a prophet.
To this end, he did not shy away from making revelations, even consciously, as, for example, the connection between Kaaba and Abraham, by which he intended to sanction the pilgrimage of Mecca.
To the same end, he used murder, theft, slaughter, far beyond what the Arab moral code allowed.
'' True Coraichita, says Fr Lammens, sacrificed everything to success ". A
true merchant in Mecca, the prophet's mission was attributed, through the dispensations that were allowed in the moral order.
It is in Medina that he, exalted by his success, will surrender to the greatest disorders and will authorize, by revelations of S. Gabriel, his profound sensuality, which he did not know how to dominate, neither in the face of Arab customs nor in the law of the Koran, for he dictated.
One can summarize the character of Muhammad by saying that he has in his favor the portrait that he himself drew of himself in the Qur'an, and that he places him in the historical environment in which he lived, and he has against him his own infidelity to the laws he enacted.
It is impossible to unravel the good and the bad of such a complex character. We should not judge him according to our current moral meter, in the face of which he would be nothing more than a criminal.
What is certain is that he was an intelligent, insightful, religious man, far above the level of his countrymen, which makes it difficult to excuse him for having fallen so low in his moral life.
As already said, he suffered from a religious obsession, he wanted good; but, insufficiently instructed, he distorted the path of goodness, following the voice of his heart, rather than the voice of his reason, or conscience.
He had and maintained until the end the conviction of working for the good of his countrymen, away from idolatry and orienting them towards the worship of one God.
In this fixed idea, he did not discover his personal responsibility, the inanity of his prophetic pretensions, because the ingrained obsession, taking over his spirit, no longer left him the freedom to reflect and examine what was of God and the that was his.
Self-suggestion made him create a conviction, which he considered real and which he took as a compass for his action and his personal morals.

CHAPTER V

PREACHING IN MECA

The new prophet of Alah (God), will enter the scene, with the firm conviction of being the envoy of God, to abolish the idolatry of his people and give new directions to the life of his countrymen.
We can only follow the new prophet by indirect conjectures, as historians of this time have mixed so many legends and superstitions with the facts, that it is difficult to discern the reality.
His convinced, harmonious, imagined word was addressed, initially, to intimates, extending, little by little, to relatives and friends, creating around him a kind of secret society.
What were the themes you developed?
Perhaps we could say that it was first of all faith in one God, Alah, and faith in oneself as a prophet of God.
God is a .., he says in the Qur'an.
There is no one who resembles him in power.
Neither tiredness nor sleep overcomes it.
Everything in heaven and on earth belongs to you.
To this fundamental truth the new prophet associates death, the final judgment and hell, exhorts the practice of almsgiving, justice, prayer preceded by ritual ablutions.
 He speaks in an apocalyptic style, with short, incisive, symbolic and sweetly attractive phrases:
The desire to increase your wealth worries you,
Until the moment you descend to the grave.
You will surely learn
Once again, you will learn ...
You will see hell
You will see it with the greatest certainty
And then you will be questioned
Regarding your pleasures.
Admirable images, smooth and terrifying repetitions, succeed each other on the lips of the new prophet: I swear by the sun and the light,
by the moon when it replaces it,
by the night that hides it,
by the sky and by the one who made it,
by the earth and by the one who created it.
For the soul and for what formed it,
Whoever keeps it pure will be happy, Whoever
corrupts it will be lost.
So the series of terrifying surahs that describe the resurrection; the final judgment, heaven and hell, is linked in an expression in which the Christian truth, the doctrine of Christ, is felt to throb: they question themselves about the great news
that is the object of their controversies,
they will unfailingly know it ,
Yes, they will come to know it,
Everything on earth will pass away:
Only the face of God will remain,
In the majesty of glory.
One feels in each of these phrases a conviction that seems like a prophet and a firmness that amazes. The final judgment and hell, for example, are a finished absolutism:
The trumpet will resound.
The man will then shout: where to find refuge?
No, there is no refuge!
The last shelter will be with the Lord ...
There they will not enjoy freshness, nor any drink,
Except boiling water and pus ...
Hell; one of the most serious things.
As for the sky, the poetic images follow each other in a harmonious set.
The companions on the right!
Oh! the companions on the right,
In the garden of delights, on beds of artistically arranged fabrics!
Around these ever-young efebos,
with bowls, jugs and glasses of clear drinks
that don't hurt your head, they don't even get drunk ...
You won't feel the sun's heat nor the icy cold
You won't hear futile words there.
Nor do speeches that excite sin.
Only these words will be heard: Peace! Peace!
Thus spoke the new messenger from on high ... it was like a new doctrine ... new ideas ... new images, which, packed in the soft and caressing language of Arabic, excited the admiration and exercised a strange attraction on the listeners.
These speeches have been collected in part, and form the surahs, or verses from Carão, the holy book of Muslims.
Biblical narrations, more or less deformed, soon appear, probably as Muhammad gathered new information. Later, New Testament narrations make their appearance and complete the prophet's teaching.
The first fruits of the new sect, Islam, were peaceful.
Among the first to embrace the new doctrine was his wife Khadidja, Zaid, a slave freed by him, Abú-Bakr, a wealthy merchant from Mecca; There, son of Abú-Talib, uncle of Muhammad, Fatima, his daughter, the Abyssinian slave Bilal.
After these, a huge crowd of slaves and the poor followed the prophet, attracted by the social character of the new doctrine.
Such preaching, initially despised by the Koraichites, soon began to gain sympathies that provoked strict opposition on the part of many.
His preaching was accused of revolting slaves and the poor against the rich. The prestige of the Koraichites, moreover, would have been severely undermined if all the prophet's adherents had become his subjects.
In this case, the advantages of the pilgrimage to Mecca would disappear, which would be an immense material loss for them.
The opposition was violent and the historians of the time represented it as an open pursuit. Slaves suffered the most in this struggle.
Muhammad then allowed them to renounce their doctrine outwardly, staying faithful to him internally.
It can be seen from this fact that the moral conscience of the new prophet is not very balanced.
On the one hand, persecutions and difficulties; on the other, the advice of Muhammad, who feared that the faith of his adherents would be shaken, determined a group of friends to go into exile to Abyssinia. Two successive migrations brought together 83 men and 12 women.
Upon contact with the Abyssinian Christians, some were converted, and others, after returning to Mecca, provided Muhammad with new information about Christian beliefs. This impression can be seen in the Koran surahs of that time, which accentuate the denial of Jesus' divine filiation. Muhammad, however, insisted that his religion is identical with Christianity. "It is one and the same religion" he says in Sura XXI, 91, 92).
The conversion of Ornar, until then a terrible persecutor, a future Caliph, marks a new stage in the doctrine of Muhammad. This event provided the first Muslims with a precious reinforcement.
Muhammad had not preached in public for two years, but had delivered his sermons at Alarcam's house (615-617). Under the protection of Ornar, his public ministry began anew.
The prophet, in order to gain more followers, made a commitment to the tribe of the Koraites, lords of the Kaaba. Sura 53 keeps the memory of this tampering with its doctrine.
He preached a single God and treated the other Arab gods with idols; but the prophet recognizes the three pagan deities of Mecca: They are sublime intercessors (gharãnig), he says, whose intercession pleases God.
Later, he will remove this verse, saying that it was dictated to him by the devil instead of S. Gabriel.
This turn of opinion further irritated the Mechenses who launched a kind of ban on the entire tribe of the Hachimites, the tribe of the new prophet.
His stay in Mecca became impossible.
All the wealthy merchants in the city and the dominant tribe were opposed to the new religion, and were determined to expel the prophet and his followers from the city.
After this ban, Muhammad, his family and his minions took refuge in a mountain kaaba. The excommunication decree was written on parchment and affixed to the Kaaba.
New Muslims, almost surrounded, unable to work and earn a living, often went hungry. Fortunately, they had combinations with certain people from Mecca who supplied them secretly.
After a few weeks, at the request of a family friend, the decree was revoked and the fugitives were able to return to the city. The new prophet's trials have not come to an end, however.
In the year 620, he lost his protector and Khadidja, his faithful wife and his consoler in the sorrows that threatened, at times, to shake his courage.
Abou Talib was an octogenarian. Muhammad esteemed him as a father and was desperate for not being able to convert him to Islam.
At the time of death he pleaded with his uncle to make the profession of faith. The elder refused, so that they would not say afterwards, that he had done so for fear of death. The prophet was disgusted to see his uncle, his adopted father, his benefactor, die in the abomination of idolatry.
Khadidja's death was a tremendous blow to Muhammad because, in addition to his great fortune, she was a strong woman, had placed Muhammad in the midst of the chosen society of Mecca. It is not known whether the prophet dedicated her love or simply gratitude, however, it is certain that he remained faithful to her, and although she is 60 years old, he never gave her a co-wife.
After the death of his companion, he thought of remarrying Aicha, the daughter of his faithful supporter Abou Bakr. Aicha promised to be a beauty, but she wasn't even over 7 years old. Then only the engagement was celebrated, the wedding took place two years later, in Medina.
Aicha should be the prophet's favorite wife, the only one who received a virgin ... Being a child, the future wife was replaced by another woman, Sawda, widow of one of the Abyssinian immigrants.
Muhammad was looking for a favorable occasion to leave Meca, where he was repulsed and could do nothing more for his reform. Could it be possible that some other city gave him asylum and joined his reform?
He took in views of Thaif, the charming city of Tsaquifitas 72 miles from Mecca. He stayed there for only a month, without any result, the target of insults and often aggression by the populace. The boys came running after him, shouting and throwing rocks at him.
Expelled from Thaif, Muhammad, accompanied by his adopted son Zeid, returned to Mecca, where he continued his preaching, under the protection of Abou-Bakr.
Months later, in 622, he finally decided, after having studied the situation, to retire to the neighboring city of Yatrib. The people of this city, where the prophet already had adherents, would perhaps provide him with the support he had not found in Thaif, not even in his own city of Mecca.

CHAPTER VI

THE CHIEF OF MEDINA

Before finally carrying out the project of settling in Yatrib, Muhammad had secretly prepared the way.
A dozen pilgrims from this city had been catechized and won over to the new doctrine. These Arabs, prepared by the monotheism of their Jewish allies, questioned themselves about this extraordinary man, already known all around him: was he not the prophet of the end of the world, of whom the Jews sometimes spoke? In that case, it would be good to reconcile with him, and to meet him before everyone else.
On the other hand, Yatrib was, at the time, divided by rivalry between tribes, which had sparked a noisy civil war between the Khazrai and the Aos. This prophet might be able to restore harmony.
Such circumstances definitely guided Muhammad's career.
A commission, made up of inhabitants already converted by the prophet and others of influential positions, had an evening interview with him. Everything was settled: the emissaries were in agreement with the prophet.
Retorted the head of the emissaries, "Sent from God, we will follow you everywhere, but if we die for you, what will be our reward?"
- Paradise, declared Muhammad.
- Extend your hand!
 He extended his hand to them, and they all swore allegiance to him.
EI Ablas, the head of the delegation, stepped forward and said: "Tomorrow, if you want, we will attack with our sabers the idols of Mina." go in peace ... I will give orders in due time ".
This fact must not go unnoticed: it is a new phase of action, in the life of Muhammad and his Muslims, which is beginning.
Until then, the prophet had not allowed his followers to draw the sword. The Koran contained only exhortations to patience. Muhammad and his people, last: 13 years, they responded to all persecutions with sweetness and forgiveness.
From now on, Muslims were allowed to respond to violence through violence, but only when order came from God, through their prophet.
Muhammad made all his followers go to Yatrib in small groups. A hundred men and women went into exile in this way. The prophet remained, with Ali and Abou-Bakr, in Mecca.
The latter wanted to leave for Yatrib as well.
'' Do not hurry, said Muhammad, you will go with me, because I also hope to be authorized by God to emigrate ".
The lack of sincerity appears more and more in the life of the prophet, the role prepared beforehand to announce his revelations and make him believe that he always acted on God's orders.
These are discordant notes that begin to tarnish the first sincerity of the prophet's obsession.
Abou-Bakr prepared to run away with his friend, and for four months he had two quicks ready. camels, for that purpose. Although the Qoraichites hated Muhammad, they did not want him to be away, for fear that he would encourage any uprising against Mecca. It was necessary to leave on the sly, without anyone knowing.
There he sacrificed himself, and reportedly spent the night in Muhammad's bed, wrapped in his well-known green mantle. The prophet left with Abou-Bakr at night, and for three days and nights he hid in a cave on Mount Thour, three miles from Mecca.
The time for patiently enduring persecution, for paying off injuries with humility, was over. Islam must now win or die!
The ancient Jewish prophets came with miracles and men led them to death or irritation. Muhammad does not work miracles, nor does he intend to let himself be killed: he had to flee after a thousand mistreatments and humiliations.
Jesus Christ came with miracles and divine words. Muhammad will now come with the sword. It is a new life that begins, the Life of struggle, the holy war of the sword.
After seven days of travel, the small group of fugitives approached Yatrib. They were already beginning to find the great Kasbas of the suburban tribes. A part of the city, the Banou-Sahrn tribe, with their Cheikh Boraida, came to receive and pay homage to the prophet, with the Muslims already resident there.
Two tribes fought over the city and lived in continuous wars. Muhammad took advantage of the favorable occasion and connected himself with all his supporters to the most peaceful party, concluding a mutual protection pact. Thus reinforced, this tribe was able to easily dominate the opposing party.
It was on July 16, 622 that this event took place that was to play such an important role in the evolution of Islam.
Muslims chose this date as the starting point of their private calendar, or was Muslim, calling it a hijra (hydjra or flight) and the city was named: Medinat el nabi (city of the prophet), or simply Medina.
A few days later, the faithful Zeid, Ai cha and Osma, the two daughters of Abou-Bakr, and the prophet's family arrived.
Installed in Medina, Muhammad was able to organize his cult there in detail, at the same time as he founded a civil society on entirely new bases in Arabia, outside the previously exclusive conceptions of tribe and clan. He was thus both an apostle, a legislator, a politician and a warrior.
It was the fulfillment of his great reformer dream. Since then, he will no longer be the persecuted head of a minority, a preacher discussed and often forced to hide. In front of his troops, which will increase day by day, he will now appear as head of state and religious head.
He has sufficient power in his hands to paralyze Medina's dissentions and address the interests of his doctrine. It is the solemn inauguration of a political statute that turns Islam, hitherto limited to spiritual teaching, into a political religion.
His authority was solidly defined after the first great victories over his enemies.
It was for him to reconcile, on the one hand, with the Jews, numerous and influential, and on the other, with the Arabs not yet converted to Islam.
With the first, he contemporaryized, adapting to his religious practices: he fasted on the days prescribed by the Jews, prayed in the direction of Jerusalem and even won over some rabbis. Most of the Jews, however, became hostile to him.
By virtue of a solemn decree, all Muslim emigrants from Mecca, all converts from Medina, as well as all the Dhazraj and Aos still pagans and the various Jewish tribes of the region, their Confederates, were found in the same nation.
Everyone should assist one another and jointly defend the city. Jews would achieve freedom of worship and the right of protection for Muslims. As long as there were enemies to fight, they would contribute to the expenses of the war.
No fraction could make an alliance or war without the consent of the prophet to whom all matters would be handed over, for sovereign judgment.
After the enthusiasm of the early days, Muhammad was not without difficulties in Medina.
His arrival contradicted some interests and undid some combinations.
A certain Abdalah expected the supreme power and did not forgive the prophet for having snatched it. The discontented were grouped around him.
Muhammad's authority, despite his prestige, was not always easy to maintain. There were even fights in the middle of the square. One day, when the prophet was riding on his donkey, Abdalah shouted at him: "Get away, your donkey stinks."
- The donkey of God's envoy, shouted a Muslim, smells better than you! And they hit each other with palm branches, punches and toes.

* * *

The prophet did not forget, however, his general plan. Momentarily puts aside its religious program, to strengthen its civil dominion. It seeks to captivate the sympathy of some for religion, and to dominate others by force.
Their personal enemies, the Koraichites, feel the weight of their revenge, while other enemies are attracted by the hook of religion and power.
He orders the construction of a house of prayer, which must be the first mosque of the new religion, and in imitation of Christians in Syria, he organizes the so-called house of prayer.
It is at this time that he dictates the essential laws of Islam, laws still deeply imbued with Judaism. Until then, prayer was advised, now it is mandatory.
As among Jews, the appointed time is one in which a black and white thread can no longer be distinguished.
The strict fast of one day in the year at the Jewish Yom kip pous is extended, to the imitation of the Eastern Christians, to the entire month of Ramadan.
Pork and other foods, considered unclean by Jews, are prohibited, as is the use of wine.
Alms are diverted from their charitable purpose to a mandatory contribution to war.
The number of women is limited to four. The prophet thus forms a new religion, lent in part to Jews, Christians and pagans; new religion that seems to him equivalent to Judaism and Christianity.
He thought that each nation should have its own religious form and prophet. Islam brought Arabs over and over.
To create a national religion, it was necessary to win the sympathy of all Arabs; and to review Mecca, the forgotten homeland, it was urgent to take timely action. Now, Jews and Christians objected to the novelty of Islam, while their religion had an immense list of prophets and an even larger list of admirable and supernatural gestures.
Muhammad wanted to provide and dismiss the objection, but with his ignorance of the biblical religion, he came to identify Mary, Moses' sister, with Mary, Mother of Jesus; and learning that Abraham was the father of Ishmael, ancestor of the Arabs, draws the conclusion that he is neither Jew nor Christian, but Arab.
To resolve all difficulties and reconcile all positions, he decided to give himself up as Abraham's follower.
The new religion would thus be the national religion of the Arabs, as Judaism was the religion of the Jews and Christianity the religion of the Christians.
To achieve this, it was necessary to establish a connection between Abraham and · the Kaaba of Mecca. Mohammed, did not back down before this new project.
Kaaba, with its stone and its idols, was to become the sanctuary of Islam. It is for her, and no longer for Jerusalem, that Muslims would turn to face, in saying their prayers. The pilgrimage, advised in the beginning, would be imposed later.

CHAPTER VII

THE WARRIOR TREMENDOUS

Muhammad entered the new phase of his life: that of a warrior. As he repeated: Paradise is in the shadow of swords! It is Martyr who gives his life for something other than fortune. The prophet had his ambition: he wanted to dominate, and this ambition was developing as he rose to power.
To this date he has shown a sincere zeal in his project to purify the national cult, constantly recommending tolerance, as the weak use. But today, he feels strong, and wants to become stronger, to spread his religion better. He wants to establish the kingdom of God, by force.
Hence the new teachings, the new revelations of Saint Gabriel, to achieve this goal. The Archangel had said to him in a vision: The key to paradise is the sword!
A drop of blood shed for the cause of God, a night spent under arms, in the open, has more merit than two months of fasting and prayer.
The sins of those who die in combat are forgiven, and their wounds give off an amber scent.
Do not believe that those who died fighting in the way of God are dead; they live with God and receive food from him! (Quran, 111, 163);
From the Hégira, or installation in Medina, where Muhammad was the civil, military and religious leader, war was virtually declared between the city of the idolaters (Mecca) and the city of the Prophet (Medina).
War seemed to him now, the only way to save Islam; it was a matter of life or death.
If the Koreas, in an attack on Medina, were victorious, all would be lost. Muslims needed to kill and be killed, to fight those who had driven them out of their homes unfairly, just because they said: our God is Alah.
To die in God's way was to suffer martyrdom, Muhammad repeated to the faltering.
The Koraichites and the tribes of Arabia, together with the Jews of Medina themselves, were going to fight against the Islam, whose chances of success seemed very uncertain.
The Koran will now become, not only a religious code, but a war bugle, urging the faithful to courage, a compendium of their chief's agendas. It will be the stimulus of the weak, it will give conviction to the undecided, it will denounce the hypocrites, defeatists, it will promise to the martyrs the soft calm of paradise.
God bought the goods and people from the believers to, GIVE THEM EXCHANGE TO PARADISE, Muhammad repeated to excite his soldiers to sacrifice everything for the triumph of Islam. It is the theory of holy war, or jihad, that takes shape in the Qur'an and the spirit of the prophet.
The successive revelations always attributed to S. Gabriel, fragmentary and disordered, speak of jihad, refer to contemporary successes, to the attitude that in the struggles must keep Muslims, according to changing circumstances.
Material interests mix with those of faith, and often, in practice, overcome them. Jihad, of simple means, became an end, and the spiritual is sacrificed to the temporal, at times, in an entirely scandalous way.
War is, first of all, an opportunity for profitable extortion. Finding someone during an expedition, they killed him without trying to find out who he was, and then, to apologize, they said he was unfaithful.
It is true that the Qur'an stigmatized such a procedure, however, it seems that Muhammad is often in contradiction with Saint Gabriel, or rather with himself, allowing in practice what he prohibited in theory: it was adaptation to circumstances, as he always knew how to do, throughout your life. As a legislator, he considered himself superior to the law and outside its requirements.
It is true that all the blame does not weigh on Muhammad.
He could not radically and instantly change the character of his people: he seems to have endeavored to do so and even to correct himself, for he had a certain vindictive penchant.
The looting was the normal result of the entire struggle between Arabs, and a kind of national industry. The prophet allowed his own, as a result of his weakness, as he said.
Many of his people were enriched after prodigious conquests. The great disciples accumulated considerable fortunes, stealing the treasures of the rich.
Muhammad organized some 40 expeditions in the first ten years of his government, personally taking part in about 30 campaigns and leading a dozen battles, not to mention the difficult negotiations he had to guide.
For such expeditions in Arabia, qualities of constancy, diplomacy, energy and rare skill are required; nevertheless, the chief still feels that he is incessantly threatened, without having any basis other than the unstable adhesion of the population. And in this difficult, exhausting art, Muhammad was extraordinary.
Since arriving in Medina, he began to prepare for war. The circumstances of rivalries already mentioned, abruptly put an army at their disposal. The emigrants from Mecca, where their possessions had been confiscated and their houses sold, have no choice but to take a revenge.
The Ançar de Medina had vowed to follow the prophet into combat.
A few months after his arrival, Muhammad organized different expeditions. The first was entrusted to his uncle Hamza; another to Obaida. Shortly thereafter, Muhammad himself led 200 men in Bowat, where he waited in vain for a caravan that escaped him.
Then he went to Ochaia, where he intended to surprise the great winter caravan that Mecca sent to Syria every year. The danger was considerable.
This caravan was one of the most important that had been sent for a long time, comprising 1000 camels and an escort of 50 warriors. It brought a million goods.
The prophet was not happy. The prey escaped him and he returned, having achieved nothing.
Rajab began, a holy month, during which all hostilities are suspended.
The people of Thaif had just harvested their fruit and dried the grapes they exported annually.
Muhammad wanted to take the opportunity to take revenge.
He sent a troop to hide in a forest next to the road where they were supposed to pass.
When the caravan appeared, the Muslims came out of hiding, climbed the slopes of the hill, jumped from rock to rock and launched themselves at the merchants, killing some and making others prisoners. The rest fled, abandoning animals and goods in the hands of the Muslims, who divided the rich spoils among themselves, reserving the fifth part for the prophet, and hurriedly resumed the path to Medina.
The scandal was immense. The holy truce was violated. There were complaints from all sides ... but the prophet, in whose service St. Gabriel was, to excuse all demands, brought them a new revelation that said: It is true that waging war during the holy months is a crime.
But fighting against God, persisting in idolatry, preventing God's servant from accessing the Kaaba, expelling him from his homeland, him and his family, is an even greater crime.
The prophet fights unbelievers and the wicked, treats them strictly, hell will be their hideous habitation.
O believers, fight your unfaithful neighbors, be their relentless enemies.
God bought the life and goods of the faithful, and paradise is his price.
Fight the infidels and kill them.
The promises of the Pentateuch, the Gospel and the Koran will be fulfilled, because who more than God is faithful to his covenant?

CHAPTER VIII

THE GREAT BATTLE OF BADR

In December of this year, the famous caravan of merchants from Mecca, under the orders of Abon Sofian, was returning from Syria, laden with goods of great value.
In an instant, Muhammad set his army on a war footing. It consisted of 240 ançares and close to 100 soldiers from other places, with about 70 camels. Altogether about 400 men.
They took the direction of Badr, valley where the path of Medina crosses with the great road of the caravans, that goes from Syria to Mecca.
The Koraichites had been warned of Muhammad's resolve to attack them en route, and urgently asked Mecca for help. From there an army of 1000 men, 700 camels and 200 horses was incontinently raised.
Muslim forces were stationed in the Badr valley, on the northern and eastern slopes, opposite the direction of Mecca.
Those with a mount were armed with spears and saber and those with infantry with bows and arrows.
Abon Sofian, the head of the caravan, warned by two spies, deviated from the usual path and went further west, through the sea dunes.
The precious caravan had escaped the clutches of the prophet, but the Koraichites, knowing the inferiority of the Muslims, decided to fight them.
They skirted the hill ... and appeared with all their might before the eyes of the prophet.
Muhammad's troops were hoping for an easy and profitable triumph over a weakly protected caravan, but now in the presence of a numerically stronger enemy, they felt faint and lacking the courage to start a fight.
The prophet's ardor encouraged them, promising them victory, in the name of God.
In fact, it was too late to refuse.
The battle started fierce.
The archers riddled those they could reach with arrows.
It was midday, and the sun shone through millions of fiery arrows, which seemed to intersect with Muslim arrows.
Screams rose through clouds of dust, and there was an acrid smell of blood in the air.
Muhammad passed out and fell stiffly to the floor, his face sweating. Finally he came to himself and exclaimed: Rejoice! Rejoice!
Saint Gabriel had sent him a message: Rejoice, he said, God's help is with you. You are in the shade, while your companions fight.
Muhammad mounted his horse and went down with his guard, shouting to the combatants: I fought without fear! Paradise is in the shadow of swords! Fight the infidels and kill them!
It was then that the fate of battle and Islam was decided.
The balance of destiny faltered for an instant and leaned towards Muhammad.
The day progressed. Amid the noise of the spears, the hissing of arrows and the screams of the wounded, the voice of the prophet could be heard: I fought without fear - Kill the infidels - the enemies of Alah!
And Muslims, in a wild cry, shouting: Mahomet, Rasou !, Alah! Muhammad is God's prophet!
The Koraichites had lost a lot of people and although they still had the American advantage, they felt discouraged, they hesitated ... they backed away.
They begin to flee ... it is defeat ... They abandon their shields, weapons, armor, to run faster and delay the pursuit.
One of the Muslims finds an injured Koranic chief, Abou Jahl, cuts off his head and takes it to the prophet.
There is but a God, he said, prostrating himself to give thanks. This man was the Pharaoh of our homeland and was punished like all of God's enemies!
Abou Bakr's son, Abderaman, who had remained a pagan, fled when his father saw him and asked him, from a distance, what had been done of his goods in Mecca: Only what remains, replied the son insolently, arrows, bows and a saber to end the recklessness of old age!
The persecution of the fugitives continued, as well as the search for abandoned spoils.
This memorable day of Badr, in which the sectars of Muhammad, leaving with the vulgar intention of easy prey, had for some moments been elevated to sublime heroism, was sadly tainted, in the end, by cupidity and by excesses of nascent fanaticism.
Hundreds of corpses lay in the field.
Muslims threw the bodies of their enemies into an old well. Furthermore, they grossly insulted us, and no one wanted to cover them with soil.
Some of these Muslims had their own parents among the dead.
On the third day, at last, Muhammad approached the hideous pit and began a tragic speech to these corpses, who, he said, heard him as well as the living: O dead! did you find what your idols promised you?
As for us, we found what our Alah promised us!
What bad countrymen you have been towards your prophet!
You called me a liar, while others believed me!
You threw me out and others picked me up!
You warred me and others helped me!
You deserved hell and we paradise!
To end Muhammad's great triumph, there were wild dances, drinking, songs and singing by the poets of Medina. One of them sang:
Firo with my spear,
Until it bends,
My saber suckles to death,
Blood in abundance,
Just like a camel
That lets its milk flow!
The Muslim Army camped for three days at the scene of the battle in order to resolve the serious issues of prisoners and spoils.
Omar advised the death of all captives; Abou Bakr to his surrender delivery.
This was the party they took.
Moving from enthusiasm to economic contingencies, they almost fought over the sharing of the spoils.
Abon Sofian's splendid caravan had escaped, but in return, a large number of weapons and camels had been removed, not to mention the money that the captives produced.
How to share it all?
The dispute was fierce between the three parties. Muhammad finally decided that everything belonged to Alah, and his Envoy, and that he would proceed with the distribution as Saint Gabriel sent him, in a message.
The question of the spoils was important, because in the future many similar ones would appear. It was necessary to resolve it precisely.
Fortunately, St. Gabriel brought a revelation to the prophet:
God orders, he said, that the fifth part be reserved for the prophet, so that he can dispose of it according to his needs, for his family, among the poor, orphans, travelers and Saint war!
Everything was settled. The angel Gabriel, as the prophet's humble and faithful servant, always revealed what he wanted!
Zeid had brought the news of the victory to Medina. Soon the young men left, drumming their "defs" and humming:
Alah il Alah, Mahomet Rasoul Alah!
God is God and Muhammad is your prophet!
Badr's victory inaugurated a series of victories that should change the face of the world.
That same year, Muslims also had the opportunity to rejoice at the revenge of Greek Christians on the idolatrous Persians.
By the installation of Muhammad in Medina, the Muslim government began. With the victory of Badr, the era of conquest of Islam in Asia and later in the whole world began.
Fanaticism is communicative ... it is a spark, a ray, and this ray lit by Muhammad, was going to inflame his successors, and make them the conquerors of the pagan world, until their forces were broken against the Christian armies of the Frans de Carlos Marte !, from Poles of Sobieski and sailors from Montfort, in Lepanto.

CHAPTER IX

OHOD'S GREAT DEFEAT

Badr's victory singularly strengthened Muhammad's authority. The opposition, however, has not disappeared.
Now, the prophet thought he was strong enough to get rid of the most dangerous enemies.
A Jewish poet, Asma, who had written verses against the prophet, was, one night, murdered among her children, by order of Muhammad.
Old 120-year-old Abou Afàk paid with his life for opposing the new Muslim conception.
The Jews of Medina did not appreciate the prophet's gestures, and refused to embrace the new religion. They were surrounded in their neighborhood, and Muhammad, wanting to set an example of punishment, ordered them to tie them up and cut off their heads.
A wealthy Jew from Medina, Kaf ben Achraf, having rebuked the prophet, ordered the person to be stabbed in the heart.
Another wealthy Jew, Abou Rafi, who lived in a neighboring castle, had excited the Jews against the prophet.
He had him strangled in his own bed while he slept.
On these occasions, Muhammad, who had always preached forgiveness, patience, respect for others' lives and goods, seems to feel no more remorse. Everything serves him and everything is allowed to reach the end: to dominate the whole Arabia and to subject the whole country to his religion and domination.
Muslims reached such a point of obsession with the teachings of their prophet, and so identified their interests with those of God, that none of them felt the least scruple about committing the greatest crimes for the sake of the sect.
Several individual frictions took place after these murders.
A Muslim who had killed a Jew, his benefactor, his brother, still idolatrous, blamed this ingratitude.
- The bread he gave you is still in your womb.
- By Alah! if Muhammad, who told me to kill this man, told me to kill you, my brother, I would.
Impressed with such enthusiasm, the brother immediately became a Muslim.
Strange method of apology!

* * *

While the prophet carried out his revenge in this way, causing his enemies to be murdered, the Korahites met and resolved to take a reprieve from Badr's shameful defeat.
They gathered an army of 3,000 warriors, 200 of whom had fiery horses, and 700 others were equipped with leopard-skin mail or armor. On the orders of Abon Sofian they advanced on Medina.
Although Muhammad had only 1,000 men with him, he wanted to face the enemy. Armed, with a spear in hand, a sword at his side and a shield hanging from his shoulder, he reviewed the army and took it a short distance from the city, on Mount Ohod.
He ordered 50 archers to be put in a throat, in order to avoid surprises at the rear, with the order not to leave. He had a sword on which was written: "Cowardice does not save itself from fate".
The Koraichites arrived, carrying an idol in an urn on a camel. Around this idol fifteen women drummed drums and sang wild melodies to encourage the warriors: We the daughters of the morning star ...
We walk on delicate rugs
Our musk-scented hair:
If you go heroically, we will kiss you
If you run away we will shamefully repel you !
Thus the Koraichites sang in the rear, while others shouted to the men: Forward! kill without mercy, spare no one!
May your sabers be sharp
And your hearts unyielding!
In the great wars, the Arabs took women to battle, because their chants and cries lifted spirits and their presence led men to fight to the death. When this happens it is a sign that they will go to extremes.
Muhammad understood the danger, and brandishing the sword he shouted to his warriors:
God is with us,
kill the infidels!
Don't escape any!
Victory is ours
Victory belongs to Alah!
The pull from both sides was tremendous.
The Koraichites riddled the first Muslim lines with arrows, while the horsemen tried to attack them from the flank.
The Muslims' violent attack opened up a wide gap in the forces of the idolaters. It was a veritable storm of screams, arrows, stones and dust! ...
In the middle of the struggle, the Mechish cavalry suddenly burst up the hill, behind the Muslims, in whose ranks there was then an inexpressible confusion: the former threw themselves at the latter, and several killed each other by mistake.
The Muslim standard-bearer waves the prophet's flag, but a Mechense man cuts off his right hand. He grabs it with his left hand, it is severed instantly and the banner falls on the floor. He lets himself fall on him to cover him with his body shouting: - Have I done my duty? And died.
The situation is aggravated for Muslims, dominated by numbers. Panic takes hold of them and they start to flee, leaving the valley covered with corpses and the wounded. The prophet himself was forced to flee and at the cost was saved with his life.
He was hit in the face by a stone with such violence that he fell with a split lip. Wiping the flowing blood with a cloth from his cloak, Muhammad sighed and said: How can there be enough obstinate people to make the blood of the prophet who calls them to God flow! ...
An arrowhead had also hit him in the face, and caused him great suffering. As he fled with his own, the heavy armor that would free him from death hindered his movements and made him fall into a ditch.
The companions picked him up and carried him to the city.
The battle was over. The Koraichites, quenching their hatred, slaughtered and stole the corpses, while the women cut their ears and noses to make necklaces.
That night, the remnants of the Muslim army, exhausted from fatigue, felt immense anguish overtake them, for apart from the shame of defeat, nothing was known about the victor's intentions.

* * *

Faith in the prophet was somewhat shaken, but Muhammad did not give up and knew how to raise the morale and courage of his troops.
The following night, Saint Gabriel brought a new revelation to save the situation. God said to him:
It is our will to vary successes, so that God may know believers, and choose his martyrs among you.
O believers, if you listen to the infidels, "He will drag you to error and you will die.
After Ohod's defeat, the prophet's enemies raised their heads again, saying that such failure was a proof of Muhammad's inability.
If Badr was a a kind of proof of divine assistance, Ohod was proof that Muhammad was not a prophet.
The latter then redoubled his activity, and in order to highlight his mission and his capacity, he decided not to give respite to the enemy or to his troops.
He started the organization of cavalry corps, formed regiments of lancers, slingers, sagittarians, etc.
Soon after, a new disaster came to disturb his peace.
A politician's betrayal outraged Abon-Barra and caused a disaster in the Prophet's troops. He asked for this assistance from the Medinenses, who helped him fight his enemies and were treacherously slaughtered by the Bis-Maonna wells.
The death toll was greater than in Badr, and almost as much as in Ohod. Furthermore, the prophet's prestige was shaken among the Bedouin tribes.
The prophet was very sad and bitterly complained about the traitors.
A more atrocious war was brewing ... The Koraichites allied themselves with the Jews and the Bedouins: such a coalition was capable of delivering a death blow to Islam.
Muhammad gathered his men and said to them: God is your protector!
He used your enemies to flee and try you out. You did not hear the voice of the prophet who called you into battle, and God punished disobedience.
These words revived the Muslims and prepared them for new expeditions.
The next day Muhammad, suspecting a further attack on the part of the Koraichites, went with his troops to the side of Mecca, finding, in fact, the adverse army.
He showed courage. Despite his injuries, full of audacity, he threatened to face his enemies.
On the way, to deceive his enemies and make him believe that he was preparing for the fight, he stopped for four days in a camp, lighting fires at night to signify that he did not resign.
The enemy who did not intend to start a new fight, finally took the path to Mecca and the prophet returned to Medina.

CHAPTER X

STRATEGY AND CRUELTY

An important part of the global judgment of our hero's life would be lacking if we omitted the subject above.
In fact, it makes his personality the warrior character he was.
Had Muhammad not been a person of a particular genius, showing contradictory qualities in himself, and we would not have to consider him in this respect.
It would be said that the sensual and soft man of the harems, with a sinful and addicted life, would not present manly and consistent aspects, typical of an indomitable warrior.
It would be said that the use of violent methods should not be used with a head of a religious faction, when the belief should be made whole. of sweetness and charity.
But, like those emperors of Rome, so much was their vice and their superstition, full of pagan extravagances and truncated rites of Christianity, as was their audacity and impassiveness in the dangers.
Bedouin of endless deserts and vast expanse, from an early age, he had become accustomed to the unexpected of the assaults, the ferocity of an assault on the naked sword, the clash in the open countryside, and the close and deadly defense of the Arab caravans. Butchering enemies without the slightest remorse, beheading them like butchery animals, trampling their bloody bodies under the camels' hooves, moved him as much as his love exploits within the harems impressed him.
His sacred motto: "believe or die, we will conquer heaven in the shadow of swords" demonstrates very well the noisy and bellicose mentality of the false prophet.
As we have seen in the last chapters, he stood out for his audacity, his cold blood and his dominant optimism, capable of dragging true crowds after him.
When events were precipitated, in order to cause apprehensions for their stout rods, bringing almost discouragement to their exalted supporters, the chief told them that God saw and protected them, that they had nothing to fear and that victory was closer than they could think.
Do not imagine Muhammad as a skilled general, an enviable possessor of extraordinary military secrets. Certainly, he did not have the striking strategic gifts of the great military conductors of history. It would be naive to compare him to Alexander, Napoleon, Hannibal, Caesar and other great commanders of Roman legions.
But, like them, and perhaps more than them, he was endowed with an incredible hunger and thirst for dominance, an unlimited realization of his dominating capacity, and he knew how those, in poetic raptures and electrifying shouts, to vigorously propel huge fanatized troops, ready obeying him with a single wave of his voice and a proud gesture from his arms.
Very risky expeditions, legendary adventures, dangerous incursions, armed robberies, repeated looting, vengeance executed in the greatest cold blood, heroic defenses, hasty escapes - he was a pioneer of so many things and he left everything unhurt, sometimes with little injury .
One can, without fear of error, claim that he possessed in a high degree the gift to suggest and excite sympathy and confidence in his subordinates, in order to be obeyed and to achieve a result in the attacks in which he exposed himself jointly with his own, in for a cause that said sacred and intangible.
The Muslim army was, under Muhammad's control, a terrible scourge. In the fight against the Jews, he became a true scarecrow. Expressions like this: "Muhammad! It's him! It's Muhammad and his army!", Say historians, were a denunciation of escape. There will be no mercy: we will flee or be beheaded.
It was the cries of despair of those surprised by him and his army.
We would have achieved nothing, we can say, had it not been for him that he possessed the characteristics of great warrior captains.
If loyalty was advised to believers, he did not fail to deny this recommendation, becoming a traitor and becoming accustomed to the illusionist and unworthy resources of a straight person. Even for such an expedient, many victories smiled at him.
He once announced to the Qoraichites that he would come to them on a pilgrimage, of a religious nature, and not as an enemy. This resulted in the defeat, imprisonment and massacre of all of them, harvested unexpectedly.
The prophet's prestige sanctifies, before his supporters, his most abominable and absurd massacres. The prophet's word had become an open door to everything. And his thought, his desire, even if it was a manifest crime, acquired for the moment prophetic revelation, which he had to carry out.
And this extreme passion for the cause espoused by the celebrated Arab, coupled with the influence of a distorted religious mystic, which he had known to spread, as a preparation for the terrain, among the people, can explain his secret of victory and struggle.
His sensual life, his accentuated attraction to women, his effeminate appearance, his exaggerated vanity, his immeasurable pride, none of these serious defects came to seriously tarnish the unparalleled value of Muhammad.
"We swear allegiance to you and to Islam, O Muhammad, forever, as long as we are alive."
Expressions like this serve to tell us the solidarity of the Arabs who are fanatical of the great chief.
Say what you want, he had the gifts of courage, audacity and perspicacity, qualities he exploited to achieve his goals.
Damnable that are all his plots, war conquests and party struggles, we still recognize those predicates of Muhammad's personality, for the person's full judgment.
Concomitantly with his combative ability, his cruelty went on. However, one must still see here manifestations of some kindness and some desire to forgive on certain occasions.
However, there was no limit to his insatiable thirst for complete revenge, in which he acted cruelly and mercilessly.
The massacre, the barbaric death of the prisoners, by inhumane methods, the distribution of their spoils, without attending to pleas from innocents and women, transformed him into a black and fearful ghost, for whom treachery and tricks were a customary resource for achieve the desired triumph.
If in the Qur'an he had left express precepts of forgiveness and mercy, in his fury at the rabbis and the disaffected, it was truly unforgiving. The Mohammedan Arabs inherited his spirit in the bloodthirsty expansion of their doctrine, making the West and the East, for many centuries, in an uproar, at the time of the Crusades.
"You have to choose between complete surrender and the most barbaric war." He was, as it turns out, a totalitarian, ambitious, full of himself and a well of pride.
It was with this unworthy weapon that he ordered in his law - "I fight the unbelievers, I fight them to the death".
Temperament "sui-generis", Muhammad entered history through the door of superstition and violence. He made use of the distinctive signs of his race, to achieve the end he proposed - to impose Islam.He didn't back away from anything.
When death surprised him, his ideology dominated all of Arabia. It was the victory of his strategy and his cruelty.

CHAPTER XI

THE SENSUAL LIFE OF Mohammed

Early in his career, Muhammad was the reformer of his countrymen's paganism. Having been successful in this company, he became a legislator and chief civilian, a sector in which he shone with undeniable value. Organizing his army, looting at first and conquering later, he became the brave and overwhelming warrior. Still here, he is a superior man, who shows an above-average courage and insight.
Absorbed in these far-reaching companies, the prophet lived in fidelity to his wife Khadidja, without the story citing remarkable incontinence scandals in his course. Taken, however, to the pinnacle of glory and power, and leaving to his helpers the active part of the war and the conquests, Muhammad falls on himself, and shows his own supporters and the whole world, what was at the bottom of his restless temperament: sensual and effeminate, wrapped in the mantle of the darkest hypocrisy and the most outrageous cynicism. It looks like another Mohammed, or at least a degenerate Mohammed ...
It is the sad and dark page of this great man's life; gaudy page of moral debasement.
It seems that a tremendous sensuality, repressed until then, took hold of him and launched him into the most shameful life for a great man.
Since his arrival in Medina, Muhammad had organized a home, similar to that of Arab saids. Like the other chiefs, he made several marriages of love or politics, and he also did not deprive himself of some concubines, beautiful slaves who had been given him as gifts or who were war captives.
After the death of Khadidja, his first wife, whom he had always respected for 20 years, although older than he, Muhammad fell into a veritable slump of lust and mania for marriages! He married Saioda, Sokarn's widow, because his first lover, the girl Aicha, daughter of Abou-Bakr, married to him at the age of nine, was not of nubile age. He also married Hafça, daughter of Omar. Later he fell in love with Om - Selma, widow of an emigrant from Abyssinia, etc.
All of this was already outside the law, dictated by him, but at least it was still in conformity with the pagan law of the Arabs, who admitted polygamy - but there are more serious facts that disagree with all law and all customs, even the pagan Arabs.
Muhammad had a adopted son whom he loved, Zeid, (the prophet's beloved) who was married to Zeinab, the most beautiful girl of his tribe.
This beauty was an object of temptation for the prophet. Zeid furtively discovered his benefactor's new courtship, and in order to avoid violence or perhaps death, he decided to turn necessity into virtue, and despite the great love he had for his only wife, he decided to repudiate it to avoid contradicting his master and allow him to marry her.
He communicated his resolution to Muhammad, and made the legal repudiation. As time passed, the beautiful Zeinab let Muhammad know. He wanted to have her as his wife, but he was ashamed, because the law prohibited the union with the wife of an adopted son ...
The prophet soon removed the impediment. The next day he communicated to the people and to his new girlfriend that Saint Gabriel had given him a revelation: Can the prophet of God marry any woman, be it even his own adopted daughter, because an adopted son does not have the rights of a natural child. (Cop. XXXIII - § 73. The conspirators.).
The wedding banquet was great: it was eaten and drank day and night - but the scandal was no less, and it raised bitter remarks among its enemies and friends.

* * *

A new revelation will this time take the libidinous prophet out of embarrassment.
Some men, unaccustomed to the prophet's effeminate life, stayed drinking all night at the new wife's house. The prophet was nervous. He wanted to visit his new companion, but these annoying visitors kept him away from her. He resolved his annoyance, however, and calmly ordered the visitors to leave.
· The next day, a new message for the prophet, called the verse of the curtain. Said the revelation: "O believers, do not enter without permission in the houses of the prophet. When you are invited to enter, and when you have eaten, leave and do not engage in conversations familiarly. The Prophet does not dare to say it when it contradicts him, but God is not afraid to tell the truth. If you want to ask your women for something, ask for it through a curtain, so they will remain pure your hearts and theirs. Avoid heartbreak to the envoy of God. Never dispose of the women with whom he has had trade! " The prophet's wives were "the mothers of believers".
They were not to marry after his death. The prophet's harem must be a kind of holy, devout and voluptuous family.

* * *

Shortly after his marriage to Zeinab, Muhammad sent his army to attack the Banou Bakr. After the victory, the troops returned with the spoils and Cheik, an imprisoned enemy.
The fight had been fierce and horrifying for the voluptuousness of Muslims, who raped all women prisoners, and spent the night in nameless orgies.
Cheik's daughter,] or Waria, captive, went to beg the prophet's clemency in favor of her father. Muhammad, seeing this beautiful Bedouin, whose sweetness and grace were exceptional, appeared to have vanished from a loving attack. I wanted to marry the new prisoner, whatever the cost.
There was another scandal ... they came to arms, but soon, the prophet received a new message from heaven, which said: The prophet must marry the Bedouin, in order to seal, with a friendship pact, the peace between the vanquished and the winners.

* * *

Muhammad's favorite little wife, Aicha, had once accompanied the prophet on one of the armed expeditions, carried by a camel in a rich litter. Having left the camel's drivers for a few moments, and having fallen asleep in the shade of the trees, the expedition continued its journey, not missing the prophet's favorite. One of the warriors, following the rear of the army, recognized Aicha, made her ride on his camel and took her to the army, where, to everyone's amazement, the empty litter appeared to be.
There was scandal ... suspicions ... jealousy ... and malevolent tongues intended to accuse the "young warrior and young Aicha.
The prophet did not know what to do, caught between his distrust and his love.
Heaven lifted the prophet out of embarrassment again, and a new revelation came to settle the mood. Muhammad dictated the new Surah verses of light that proclaimed Aicha's innocence and rebuked the slanderers.
(Chap. XXIV - 64 paragraphs) It reads in § 12: "In this book one finds the truth and the light; Aicha is innocent and does not deserve any punishment".

* * *  

Muhammad also married Riana and then Sofia, another Jew taken in the remains of Khaibas. He taught her to answer: Aaron is my father, Moses my uncle and Mohammed my husband! It seems that he did not like the beautiful Jew for a long time, because, shortly afterwards, he repudiated her, calling her a sterile and ominous woman.
He even married a Christian widow, by proxy, in the Negus states of Abyssinia. It was Ramla, daughter of Abon Sofian, widow of an emigrated Christian hanif.
Hearing of his daughter's marriage to his enemy, the father angrily exclaimed: There is no restraint that this lustful camel has to master!
Later, Muhammad also married Maimouna, El Abbas' sister-in-law, which helped him with her nephew, the brave general Khalid.
He later married two women, of whom he repudiated one because of illness, another because of pride.
He also had several concubines. His lasciviousness was so well known to women, that several volunteered, judging it an honor to have relations with the envoy of God, which excited Aicha's favorite jealousy and anger. How does a woman offer herself like that! she shouted one day. Muhammad replied calmly, quoting the verse brought by S. Gabriel, giving this privilege to the envoy of God.

* * *

Jealousy reigned a great deal in the prophet's great harem: hence arguments, fights, insults.
Sometimes the prophet was irritated by such disputes and exclaimed: Hell is populated by women, I suspect your intrigues.
Natura! Replied Aicha, the favorite, confident in her power. The woman is a difficult horse to tame!
Ornar Selma present replied: I see, your other women have no importance in your eyes! And broke off from reviling the favorite.
In order to avoid further recriminations, Muhammad would take a few hours away, giving himself sick, which made Ornar say: When the prophet is sick, his women wipe the red eyes from tears, when his health returns, they cling to him. not by the throat.

* * *

Hurt, the prophet separated from his women a month. These suspected a repudiation, however, the prophet limited himself to quote to them the new revelation brought by Saint Gabriel: "If he repudiates you, God will be able to give you new wives better than you, Muslim women, believers, pious, desirous of to repent, submissive, observing the fast, both previously married women, as well as virgins. ''
To prevent new jealous revolts, by order of Gabriel, the prophet promised them not to marry new legitimate women from now on, a promise sanctioned by the Carão, ( XXXIII-52).
It does not seem doubtful that Islam has changed the fortunes of women in Arabia. "In the time of paganism, says Ornar, we gave no value to our women. This state of affairs ceased when God made revelations in this regard and designated the rights that should be granted to him."
Among the faithful, said the prophet, the most perfect is the one who is distinguished by his delicacy towards his wife.

* * *

As can be seen from the examples cited, the poor prophet, in his mature age, free from the great concerns of conquests, became a sensual, voluptuous, effeminate man, and used his alleged revelations to excuse and authorize his scandalous and lustful life.

* * *

Everything was allowed. The laws himself, dictated by him, to guide and moralize Muslims, were scorned and trampled underfoot.
And, as censorship and criticism naturally arose, in the adverse environment, since every reform raises an opposition, the prophet attributed to Saint Gabriel his lasciviousness and his feminism, as he attributed his doctrine and laws. It is the Angel himself, and through him, the God himself who is in contradiction with himself, who forbid evil, and then ordered to do it.
Today God forbids, and tomorrow allows. He corrects himself, he changes, he portrays himself ... Therefore, such a doctrine is not of God, it is a false doctrine, because God is one, he is immutable, he never contradicts himself.
This page would be enough to convince us that Muhammad had not received any mission from God, but he was just a man obsessed with a religious ideal, a kind of self-suggestion.
Sincere, at the beginning of his career, he gradually let himself be dominated by the ambition of power, of domination, and in the end by the carnal sensuality, which, in the course of the centuries, tore him from his throne as a reformer, to assimilate him to a vulgar libertine.
He himself felt his fall and to hide it, he throws on it the cloak of hypocrisy, pretending revelations to legitimize his dissolute life.
I made a point of citing these various examples, because, better than other details of his life, they indicate and form the personality of the pseudo-prophet, as pointed out by the numerous inconsistencies and changes in his moral doctrine.

CHAPTER XII

LAST DAYS AND DEATH

Muhammad was 63 years old. His last days of life were poisoned by the desperation to see other prophets rise, and by his example, to proclaim themselves inspired by God.
A certain El-Aswad, claiming to have celestial revelations, revolted the southwest of Arabia, which, renouncing Islam, was following the new envoy. The usurper entered the Christian Nejram, and even Sanan. Muslim officials hurriedly fled to Medina.
Another prophet, Morcilen, emerged from the shores of the Persian Gulf in Yemen, threatening the south of the peninsula.
Was it the downfall?
Would the Bedouins abandon Islam to follow the two imposters? One of them had the audacity to write to Muhammad: We are both sent from Alah, divide the world between us!
Muhammad decided to avenge his honor and his mission.
He ordered incontinenti to prepare a great excursion to Syria.
At the moment when the army was to leave under the command of the favorite youngster Osana, son of Zeid, the prophet suffered a violent assault of the evil that had long attacked him, and whose origins seem to go back to both the unhealthy waters and the poison of Zeinab, in Strings. He was delirious, thought he was bewitched and suffered strange sexual hallucinations.
In the delirium of a nightmare night, he went with one of his women to the cemetery, and there he congratulated the dead for having found peace.
The evil progressed, and the prophet asked to be transported to the home of his favorite Aicha.
It seems that the poison devoured his entrails.
He suffered horribly. He screamed, groaned, saying that his veins were bursting.
The next day, the illness worsened and, since then, a slow four-day agony has followed, with lucid intervals and continuous syncopes.
A feverish agitation stirred his limbs. A scorching thirst devoured his tongue, while atrocious pains shattered his insides. He screamed, he was furious, asking to be refreshed in his guts and head.
Surrounded by his friends, his women, especially Aicha, who was crying, Muhammad became increasingly pale ... an icy sweat bathed his face ... his hands tightened, trying to grab the objects that surrounded him.
It was the death that was approaching ... the death caused by the poison administered by the hands of Zeinab that wanted to know if, in fact, he was a prophet or impostor ... and the atrocious poison did its work of destruction, unmasking the false prophet and presenting the impostor to the world and the centuries.
Forewarned by his daughter, Abu-Bakr arrived on this occasion and kissed the dead man's face weeping. The exit crossed Omar, who, brandishing his saber, threatened to kill anyone who said that Muhammad had died.
The crowd that had rushed with him refused to admit it.
If you worship Muhammad, Abu-Bakr declared, know that he died. If you worship God, know that God is alive and never dies.
Ornar conformed, there were pressing things to do.
Leaving the body that had swelled considerably by the penetration of the poison, the two intimate companions, both Muhammad's in-laws, went to the meeting of the Ançar. - It was a general confusion, because the prophet did not have time to regulate the question of his temporal succession.
Several parties faced each other: the Ançar, from Medina, on one side; the Mohaproum of Mecca, with Abu-Bakr and Ornar, · the Hachimites, with Fatima, daughter of Muhammad, and relatives; the patrician Omnisados, with Abu-Sofian another father-in-law of the prophet.
Abu-Bakr, in cold blood and with the support of Omar, was able to skillfully take advantage of the general disunity and hesitation of all, and after a skillful speech he obtained Muhammad's caliphate or succession almost as surprise, as temporal leader.
The corpse was almost abandoned.
The Achimites took him and buried him wrapped in three pieces of fabric, after 36 hours, when the custom was to bury the same day.
Abu-Bakr and Ornar did not attend funerals; the latter left and forcibly entered the house of Fatima and was on the point of fighting with Alí, her husband.
Exasperated, the prophet's daughter threatened to show her hair in public, as a sign of shame and bitterness. "Prophets leave no heir," Abu-Bakr said when she came with Ali, to claim his father's inheritance.
The poor woman died a few months later, scraping her lungs and declaring herself happy to leave a world of iniquity, where her rights had been cynically trampled underfoot.
There he remarried several times. She reconciled with Abu-Bakr, and was later caliph, after Ornar and Otsman.

CHAPTER XIII

THE PERSONALITY OF Mohammed

We know the life and death of the extraordinary man who called himself "sent from God", or "prophet".
It must be recognized that Muhammad's personality leaves the ordinary, the banal and enters a very valuable psychological domain.
We have no portrait, no authentic indication of Muhammad. According to the Arab tradition, he was of medium height, had a voluminous head, dark and ruddy skin, sharp features, large and bright eyes, a large and prominent forehead, aquiline nose, black hair like ebony, a full beard, majestic and smooth physiognomy . When he became angry, a vein swelled between his eyebrows.
He was affable with his inferiors, cheerful in the coexistence of friends, and thoughtful in hours of solitude.
He did not know how to read or write, or at least pretended to be illiterate to inspire greater faith in his alleged revelations, which he said were written to him and presented by S. Gabriel.
In the words of some Arab writers, Muhammad took advantage of all other men in four things: in value, in struggle, in liberality and in marital vigor. Until the age of 50, he was faithful to Khadidja, to whom he confessed to be owed his fortune, and always respected her.
He placed her in the number of the four women, mirrors of virtue, with:
Mary, Moses' sister,
Mary, mother of Jesus Christ,
Fatima, his daughter and
Khadidja, his wife.
As she spoke of Khadidja to her other women at all times, Aicha, her favorite, interrupted him one day, exclaiming: "In any case, she was old, and was replaced by one that is worth more than she".
- No, by God, said the prophet, no woman can be preferred to Khadidja, who believed in me, when men despised me and who provided for my needs, when I was poor and persecuted ".
After she died, she successively married 15 women, despite allowing only four in the Qur'an.
Simulated until, several times, he had received orders from Heaven, to marry another woman. He also had 11 concubines, which increased the number of women in his harem to 26.
The only legitimate descent he left was Fatima, Ali's wife.
It can be seen from this group that Muhammad, dominated by the passion of the flesh, led a sensual, effeminate life, which is enough to discredit his mission as a reformer and annul the legends of the visions and apparitions of heaven.

* * *

Muhammad exercised immense power over Muslims, with the simulation of St. Gabriel's intervention being the main instrument of this power. He used and abused him, when and how it suited his purposes, to authorize his own shameful passions, to the point that his life was a continuous exception to the rules he himself established, rules from which the angel Gabriel came all the time dismiss it.
At first, a zealous opponent of idolatry, he later resorted to imposture, pretending frequent communications with God, to whom he attributed all his resolutions, as well as the persecution that moved Jews and Christians.
He condemned himself when he wrote in his Qur'an: "Making God an accomplice to a lie, simulating revelations that are not received, and saying: I will bring down a book like the one God sent, is the worst of impiety".
The thaumaturge wand was not arrogant. When enemies asked him for miracles proving his mission, he counted the victories won with the help of battalions of angels, who fought, he said, invisible among his warriors.
His believers invented miracles and wonders, but the prophet himself denied them, writing: "I was poor and I came to dominate half the world, this is the miracle I worked on!"
Trader, prophet, preacher, legislator, warrior, poet, Muhammad conceived the project of establishing, in the midst of the struggle of religions, a dogma of greater simplicity. He persevered patiently in the designs of morosa. accomplishment, he endured with courage the oppositions, the persecutions, until his great attempt to gather in his hands the religious and civil power. All of this is extraordinary, and supposes, on the part of Muhammad, a strong, firm, persevering personality, above the ordinary of men.
These great qualities are obscured by the ambition that dominated him, by the hypocrisy attributed to S. Gabriel, by the sensuality that dragged him to epicureanism, and by the cruelty in his revenge.
He is a dominating personality who wants an end, and who uses every means, even the most perverse, to achieve it.
The change that takes place in him, according to the circumstances, the modalities of his opportunism, demonstrate that, despite being brave, perceptive, intelligent, he was a hallucinated, a religious obsession.
In the middle of his career, he seems to have believed in his reforming mission, but in the end, it is also seen that it is the ambition to conquer the world that dominates him.
It is hard to believe in Muhammad's sincerity, because he resorts to so much simulation, so much hypocrisy, that it is impossible for his conscience not to protest against his procedure.

* * *

Muhammad's death appalled all believers.
Soon after, discontent arose and doubts were formulated.
Some said that the prophet could not die, and that, like Moses, he would return, after forty days, or rise, after three days, like Jesus.
The impetuous Ornar even threatened the sword with anyone who said otherwise. The prudent Abu-Bakr, disapproved of its effects: God lives forever, he said, but his prophet was mortal like us, and ended his career. We must worship the God of Muhammad and not Muhammad!
This sentence, confirmed by the putrefaction of the prophet's body, calmed the spirits and splendid funerals were prepared.
There were no tears, no hiccups, but only praises bestowed on the great man, who brought the poet's scepter and the warrior's sword to the poet's laurel.
When it came to choosing a place for his grave, there was disintelligence.
The Moadjerianos wanted to take it to Mecca, their homeland.
The Ansarians wanted to keep it in Medina, the center of their government.
Others understood that he should be buried in Jerusalem, among the prophets.
Abu-Bakr resolved the issue by declaring that he had expressed a desire to be buried in the place where he died.
So the grave was dug right under the bed where he died. A sumptuous mosque, modeled after that of Mecca, was built around the tomb, shaped like a tower, surrounded by covered galleries, with a small building in the center.
At the southeast angle of the Mosque is the tomb, in a square of black stones that support two columns.
Muhammad exclaims before he dies: "Cursed are the Jews, who have made the tombs of their prophets into temples". Due to a new contradiction, or exception to its laws, it was buried in the most splendid of the temples, and visits to this temple are one of the most sacred duties of Islam.

CHAPTER XIV

THE BOOK OF QURAN

Muhammad's doctrine, errors, qualities and vices are included in the Qur'an, which he assigned to the civil and religious code of the Arabs, wanting to bring their tribes dispersed under one law, one belief, one reformed morality, one only his own cult, entering into his plans, that the successors of his authority were pontiffs and sovereigns.
It is called Al-Koran, that is: the book. Each of its chapters is called a surah. These are 114, of unequal size, distinguishing from each other, not by order number, but by special titles, taken either from some verse or from the speaker, or from the compiler's whim.
They are in prose, but in parallel lines, with frequent rhymes, some of which are obtained by interrupting and even changing the meaning. At the top of each chapter, it reads: B'ism iilah el rohman el rakkem (In the name of God, the merciful, the merciful) - hence the formula used by Muslims for the header of all their writings: B'ism iiJah , In the name of God .
Mohammedan writers greatly enhance the style of the Qur'an. It is really mild in the passages in which it imitates poetic manners and phrases. It is concise, decorated with oriental-style figures, and often enhanced by flowery and sentimental expressions. He rises and becomes magnificent when he describes the majesty of God.
Above all, the form of the Qur'an is admired. One feels that Muhammad sought to embellish it with the charm of poetry, giving it a harmonious movement and making the verses rhyme with the periods.
The only Qur'an has the tenet that God is one, and that Muhammad is his prophet: God is God, and Muhammad is his prophet - Alah el Alah, Muhammad is Alah!
By fundamental principles he erects prayer, almsgiving, fasting, pilgrimage.
Its morals are based on natural law and on what suits the inhabitants of hot climates.
The prophet composed his book, accumulating in it many articles taken from the Bible, many fictions or fables taken from the Talmud and mixed with others that inspired his ardent imagination. However, it lacks method and connection.
In the effervescence of enthusiasm or vanity, Muhammad made the truth of his mission consist in the book's merit. Audaciously repeat men and angels to imitate the beauties contained in one of its pages, and has the presumption of asserting that such an exquisite and incomparable work could only be dictated by God.
This argument acquires strength when addressed to a devout Arab, willing for the faith, whose ears are enchanted by the beautiful harmony of the sounds, and who is unable to compare the alleged perfection with the other productions of the human spirit.
It is therefore not surprising that Muslims call the Koran - "the glorious book", or simply the book, as Christians call it: The Gospel.
The Qur'anic book was completed in 17 years, already in Mecca, already in Medina, to the extent that it was revealed to him, that is, to the extent that the legislator needed to make God speak.
Each revelation concerned the needs of the moment, the demands of passions or politics.
Although there are striking contradictions there, the discussion is avoided by the preliminary maxim that the text of the deed is modified by the subsequent explanations.
These supposed revelations were written by the Khodac or secretaries, on palm leaves or parchment, as soon as they fell from the lips of the prophet.
The disciples learned them later, and then all the fragments, whether on parchments or sheets, were locked up in a safe.
The Qur'an was put in the order it currently stands by Caliph Abu Bakr.
What is notable in the Qur'an are the references it makes to the Christian religion. Several times and in respectful terms, the prophet mentions Jesus Christ and Mary Most Holy. He is one of the oldest writers who speak of the Conception of the Virgin mother of Jesus. Alludes to both in chapters: 111, v. 37; XXI, v. 90 and LXVI, vol. 12.
It is worth reproducing here these allusions, so glorious for the pure and Immaculate Mother of Jesus.
In Chapter 111, v. 37, he says: The angel said to Mary: God chose you, purified you, you are chosen among all women, Your Son will be worthy of respect in this and the other world.
In Chapter XXI, v. 90, he says: Sing the praises of Mary, who preserved her virginity, she and her Son were the admiration of the universe!
In Chapter LXVI, v. 12, says: God offered universal admiration to Mary, the daughter of Amran, who preserved her virginity. Gabriel breathed in the divine breath. She believed the word of the Lord and was obedient.
These passages prove that Muhammad had close relations with Jews and Christians and was instructed in the main tenets of the faith they possessed, showing his whole life, respect and even veneration, towards his beliefs.
As for the Gospel, I didn't know it, or knew it badly. Some facts that he took from him show, however disfigured, that they reached his ears by traditions, or by the hands, by apocryphal books.
It makes more use of the Old Testament, of which the Pentateuch and the Psalms are expressly cited. He argues with the Patriarchs, whose story tells, with the manifest intention of restoring his teaching, authorizing himself with his examples and flattering the vanity of the nation that attributed them to his origin.
In the words of the commentators of the Qur'an, the wisdom of Moses and the piety of Jesus were considered by Mohammed as coming from God, in preparation for the path of an even more illustrious prophet, for future generations. The evangelical promise of Paráclito was anticipated as a figure of Muhammad, the last apostle of God.
It should be noted that Muhammad was surrounded by Jews and Christians, thus having the opportunity to find out about his beliefs and dogmas.
Khadidja's maid was a Christian Abyssinian.
Zeid, the adopted son of Muhammad, was descended from the converted tribe of the Banou-Kalb.
Abou Sofian's father-in-law and son-in-law were Christians, whose wife married Muhammad.
Rare were the Meccan families that did not count among their members, and especially among the six slaves, some Christians.
The prophet did not disguise his sympathies for Christianity. In the Qur'an he points to Christian martyrs from the first centuries and the most recent ones from Yemen as models.
He praises the monks and the priests, whose virtues the prophet had appreciated in the ends of Syria.
He rejoices that the Greek victory (Heraclius) prevented the destruction of monasteries and churches, where the name of God is ceaselessly invoked.
Not even when he broke with the Jews, did he disdain the Christians: "You will recognize, (says God) in those who profess the most enmity to believers, Jews and pagans, and you will see that those who are closest to the love of believers, are the who say, "Truly we are Christians. It is because there are priests and monks among them and because they are not proud.
The Qur'an allows Muslims to marry Christians and eat Christian food.
Although distorted and poorly explained, Christian dogmas encounter in the teaching of Muhammad.
Adam's original sin, expelled from paradise;
Solidarity of mankind,
Satan expelled from paradise,
Sacred books,
Guardian Angel,
Messiah,
Antichrist,
End of the world,
Resurrection,
doomsday, are points where the Qur'an shows itself to be a neighbor of Christianity.
Implicitly we even find in the Qur'an the dogmas of the Incarnation, of Redemption, of the Immaculate Conception, of the mission of Jesus, of the Ascension and even the Eucharist, in the Surah Table set.
For Muslims, the Koran is the word of God.
As in the time of Israel's prophets, it is God who intends to speak to the faithful.
However, being written in rhymed prose, the text necessarily assumes a certain editorial work.
Several details show further remodeling; for example, Surah IX prohibits visiting the mosques from the wicked when they did not yet exist.
Sura 49 speaks of wars between Islamist believing nations, when, at the time of the alleged revelation, there was only one nation.
If Zeid was not the forger, he may well have been the author who modified these and many other verses.
In short, it can be said that the Koran contains the great religious truths known to Muhammad for his contact with Jews and Christians.
The inspiration of the book is high, of an abundant poetry, of exciting images, although the language is neither erudite nor literary and, at times, slips into banalities.
The innumerable contradictions that it contains, the oppositions of one era with the other, according to the needs of the moment, demonstrate that it is a purely human work, where Archangel Gabriel is named, but from where his action is completely excluded.
They say that Muhammad was illiterate, did not know how to read or write: and he himself authorizes such an opinion. One can doubt this assertion, because, intelligent as he was, considering himself called by God to reform his people, it must be admitted that, from a distance, he was preparing his future role: he would have studied and, consequently, knew read, write and perhaps he was aware of other knowledge of his time.
If he did not read existing books, he made them read, because he has notions about all the subjects he deals with.
It is true that the Qur'an is not his exclusive work: it has been completed, perfected, remodeled, as the prophet's early historians recognize.
If we don't have the right word for Muhammad, we have at least his ideas, his organization, his laws: that is enough for us to recognize him as the author of the Koran.

CHAPTER XV

THE ISLAMITE DOGMAS

One should not seek in the Qur'an, and even less, in the Arab tradition, a well-defined body of doctrine.
Many problems, there, are omitted or ignored, although they are essential.
The main Islamist beliefs can be reduced to six:
1. The existence of God.
2. The existence of angels,
3. Divine origin of the Koran,
4. Faith in the prophets.
5. The resurrection of bodies.
6. Predestination.
Two dogmas are fundamental for the Muslim: the unity of God and the mission of Muhammad.
The name of Alah, as well as the idea that inspires it, comes from the Jews and Christians, inhabitants of the ends of Arabia.
Muhammad recognizes in God seven or eight attributes or qualities, already expressed in the Bible. They are: power, will, majesty, unlimited duration, science, justice, kindness and mercy.
The prophet understood nothing about the dogmas of the Trinity and the Incarnation. Judging them by the form of polytheism, he had not ceased to invectivate against those who thought God capable of generating.
This monotheism, strongly asserted, made a deep impression on the Arabs.
The main proof of the existence of God is his power, manifested by the order and beauty of the world, by providence and prophetism and by some pseudo-miracles, attributed to the prophet.
Although free and responsible, man is totally dependent on God, who leads or loses whoever he likes.
The predestination problem is stated, but not solved.
There is no doubt that the Koran does not admit moral fatalism, as is generally thought. As for physical fatalism, it is in the temperament of all Orientals, and is revealed in preference by the form of resignation.
Islam has the same conception of prophetism as Judaism.
Adam, Noah, Abraham, Joseph, Moses, Solomon, John the Baptist, Jesus, are considered to be the great prophets who preceded Muhammad.
Abraham, Moses and Jesus are the three largest. Muhammad considered himself as the last arrival, already announced by the Old and New Testaments. The Paráclito promised by Jesus was believed.
As for the mechanism of prophetism, Islam considers it in the most rudimentary and most material way.
It is not by virtue of an interior illumination that the prophet receives revelations, but through an objective and external way: through the word of the angel Gabriel.
If he interrogates him, in order to receive the answer, he is obliged to wait until he has new communication, like us on the phone.
In Muslim doctrine, death is followed by private judgment, which takes place inside the tomb.
The soul, which, in popular belief, seems to reside in the tomb until the resurrection, being questioned by the two angels Mounkar and Nakir, suffers the penalty there or receives the deserved happiness.
The resurrection is one of the dogmas on which the Qur'an most frequently insists. He describes it several times, seeming to rely on Ezekiel's visions.
A general judgment follows the resurrection.
The Qur'an's idea of ​​hell is quite interesting. It is a transportable device that is brought by God's order, like a locomotive, or a roaring monster.
Elsewhere, the Qur'an presents a description of hell from architecture, so to speak, as an immense seven-degree funnel plunged into the bottom of an abyss.
The Qur'an did not pronounce on the eternity of the penalties, the commentators intervened, who determined the non-eternity.
As for paradise, it is described by Muhammad under the model of these oriental gardens, with terraces, where fresh, clear waters flow, and where seasonal fruits ripen.
It thus has eight terraces, arranged in a pyramid.
Sumptuous pavilions are built in them. The pleasures experienced there are shared by the angels.
Under the influence of mystical currents, the beatific vision is added to it.
Purgatory itself is not talked about. There is, however, above hell, a bridge that the souls of the just cross over in the twinkling of an eye, while the less pure souls remain there for a long time.
Between heaven and hell, there is another kind of barrier, where sinners wait for a long time to decide their luck.

* * *

Dogma is the basis of piety. Islamist dogma, being vague, fluctuating, piety can take on a systematic form.
For the pious Muslim, however, there are five great duties of piety, which are called the five pillars of Islam.
These duties include:
1. Faith in Islamist dogmas.
2. Worship.
3. Alms.
4. Fasting.
S. The pilgrimage to Mecca.
Visibly based on the model of monastic exercises, prayer (salât) should be done five times a day. Pray wherever you are, and there is no other form of worship.
To summon prayer, the muezzin goes slowly around the minaret or tower of the mosque, his hands open on either side of his face, the index closing his ears, modulating his invitation:
God is great! (four times).
I attest that there is no other god but Alah! (2 times).
Come to prayer (2 times).
Come to salvation (2 times).
God is the greatest, only Alah is God!
Hearing this invitation, the Muslim washes his face, his arms up to his elbow, his feet up to his ankle. In the absence of water, rub with sand.
He then extends his prayer mat, turns to the side of Mecca (indicated by the mosque) and prays, standing, then prostrate, then squatting on his heels, pronouncing the short consecrated formulas, which roughly reproduce those of the muezzin.
Add to them the fatihah (the introduction) or surah at which the Qur'an begins, and which is, as it were, the Pater of the Muslim: Glory to God, Lord of the world, the merciful, the merciful, the master of the day of judgment! It is you that we serve, it is you that we ask for help. Lead us on the path of those you are not angry with, on the path of those who do not go astray!
The fast lasted for the entire month of Ramadan. There is an absolute ban on eating, smoking and sniffing perfumes before bedtime.
Fasting has become mandatory since the age of 14, with patients, travelers and expedition soldiers being exempt.
Ramadan goes from dawn in the morning until sunset, and everything that is prohibited during the day is allowed at night.

* * *

Every believer, at least once in his life, must visit Mecca and go around the Kaaba seven times and press against the angle of the mosque where the black stone is embedded, a bolide once honored with a fetishistic cult.
Social morality is an integral part of a people's dogmas.
Islam, in its genesis, must have been a vast group of believers, theoretically equal before God, the only Master, whose representative was the prophet.
The Caliphs, successors of the prophet, were to be proclaimed by the Muslim community. While their power is absolute, they could be deposed if they departed from the Koran.
Muhammad's immediate successor was Abou Bakr, who was proclaimed by the leaders of the believers.
Abou-Bakr himself appointed his successor, Ornar. And Ornar created a 6-member council, among which the Caliph was to be elected. Finally, the successor was made by heredity.
all laws must be based on the Koran. Jurisprudence is a religious science. Jurists in Islam, devoid of priests, substitute clergy for part. Doctors, or graduates, graduate from Muslim universities.
In front of the ulémas is the cheik-ul-xiolam, the main religious leader after the Caliph.
Among the doctors, the Kadis or judges, the muftis or consultants, and the magnets that preside over the prayers are distinguished.
The number of legitimate wives is reduced to four.
Many other religious practices are borrowed from Judaism, such as the prohibition of wine, pork, and other animals when they are not killed in ritual forms.
Circumcision is in general use among Muslims, although the Koran does not indicate it.

CHAPTER XVI

THE HOLY WAR

Of all the Islamist prescriptions, the most original, perhaps, and the most active for its extension, is undoubtedly the precept of holy war.
"I fought in the ways of God until all worship is that of the only God.
In opposition to other universalist religions, where the spirit of meekness dominates, this order reveals the bellicose instinct of the leader of the band, and it is above all that Islam must owe. its prodigious expansion. Military service thus becomes a religious duty, conquest becomes an apostolate, and death on the battlefield is martyrdom.
Holy war against the infidels is an obligation, in harmony with the adventurous and bloodthirsty character of the Arabs.
The prophet's counsel adapts perfectly to these dispositions, while trying to excite and soften his believers.
"I fought enemies in the war of religion, he says in the Koran, kill them wherever you find them. The danger of changing religions is worse than murder".
I fought them until you did not have to fear temptation and the divine worship was consolidated. Cease all enmity as soon as they have abandoned idols, since your anger should only be exercised against the wicked.
In your course towards them, I have transgressed laws that they do not respect for you.
Paradise is in the shadow of swords. The fatigues of war are more meritorious than fasting and prayers and other religious practices. The warriors who fall on the battlefield ascend to heaven like martyrs.
"O believers, when you march into the holy war, measure your actions and never out of greed of prey do you call the infidel to whom you salute graciously.
God has infinite riches. The faithful who stay at home, needlessly, should not be treated as those who defend the faith with life and goods. God has elevated these above those. All will possess the highest good, but those who die fighting will possess it in a higher degree. "
Such were the principles that were to direct the tremendous struggles of Islam. Death for them was a reward, an achievement, an ideal.
It is understandable that, with such ideals and convictions, the Caliphs, successors of Muhammad, were able to organize immense, courageous armies, ready to win or die.
It is the secret of Islam's surprising achievements.
Muhammad and his first successors seem great to those who bow reverently in the face of swift success, and let themselves be dazzled by quick victories, violent upheavals and extermination, a unique sign with which the prophet affirmed his divine mission.
There was, in fact, something prodigious in the speed with which his companions spread everywhere, knocking everything down in the passage like the Simum of his deserts.
The great impetus, the violent outbursts are always short-lived, they are unsustainable.
There are historians who attribute the success of Islam to its indulgence towards sensual appetites. It seems that such an idea is false, since men prefer to lean towards what is offered to them under a more rigorous aspect.
The real cause of this enthusiasm is religious fanaticism, and the ambition for dominance. In fact, Muhammad announced the reform of other religions, to submit everything to the new religion.
The neighboring countries, Arabs and drinking, were divided into hostile tribes, while Islam presented itself as a society united in faith and administration, with a single, absolute power, and therefore very effective for maintenance between the parties.
In the empire, Artaxerxes' diadem girded four fronts in the space of four years, and was ultimately left to Yezdegar, a 15-year-old child, when the Muslim army fell on them.
Greece was struggling with the same difficulties, and the victories achieved, sometimes by Chosroes, sometimes by Heraclius, weakening them, made them weak before an enemy whose forces were intact.
The Arabs, who, animated by the thirst for spoils and blood, eager for the conquest of women and a paradise that only victory promised, fell on those peoples, encouraged by generals who shouted: "God lives and contemplates you! .. victory is certain, I fought ... winning, you will be the masters of everything ... dying, you will win paradise ... retreating, you will fall into hell! "
At first, while the prophet felt weak, he only preached tolerance and freedom of conscience. The chapters he published, when he was a refugee in Medina, are of the utmost meekness, but as his forces grew, his language changed, and the Koran breathes deep hatred of all other beliefs, voting for the infidels extermination.
It was the only way to be heard by a warrior and fanatical people. Whoever worshiped different gods, or any god other than Muhammad, remained an enemy for the Arabs who had to scratch the surface of the earth.
As despair, at times provoked untamed resistance, the Caliphs were tolerant of countries outside the peninsula.
Indians could keep their pagodas and Christians and Jews could choose between Islam and paying a tribute.
The vanquished who abjured their religion and became Muslims were showered with favors, while the rest were treated like slaves.
Under this impulse, Muslim armies were penetrating all neighboring countries. They took over Syria, and after having overcome the Greeks, they took over Palestine, Phenicia and western Asia.
Dividing their armies, one marched against the Persians, while another invaded Egypt and took Alexandria, burning its splendid library and conquering the entire African coast.
In the 8th century, he crossed the Strait of Gibraltar, occupied Spain, overthrew the Visigoths, and penetrating the Pyrenees, went to threaten the Gaul, modern France, where he must find the death blow to his conquests.
Established in Spain, they made the Visigoth dynasty disappear and, in a few years, the conquered peninsula could be transformed into the Caliphate of Cordoba.
Muslims, under the name of Moors, or Saracens, dominated Spain. A handful of Visigoth Christians, however, taking refuge in the mountains of Asturias, under the orders of the heroic Pelagius, formed within the invasion a small kingdom, which was the cradle of 15th century Christian Spain.
Victorious in Spain, Muslim power overtook the Pyrenees and intended to penetrate Gaul. It was there that his strength found its first defeat.
The Crescent prevailed, therefore, in all countries that extended from the borders of China to the Atlantic Ocean, from the deserts of Africa to Europe, in addition to the Pyrenees.
The Muslim power was founded, but on what?
First about strength. Muhammad had no means of conversion and conquest. Only one: the sword. He does not use the word, but the cemetery. He instructed his legions to engrave the Koran with the sword, in the heart of humanity. The bearers of his doctrine were his squadrons. His program was summed up in two words: Believe or die!
The sword needed support. Muhammad gives him a double: ignorance and sensuality.
Before this colossus, raised by Muhammad, the world was silent, however, it was a slave's silence, of a loser, that dishonored him.
The ignorance that presided over Islam still weighs heavily on the Muslim land, which has never progressed in culture, science or invention.
While the prophet decreed darkness for the intelligences, forbidding to study any science other than the Qur'an, he destroyed morality, allowing his believers to live without restraint and eternal hopes sadder than the immorality of the earth.
The Koran, in fact, authorizes polygamy and divorce, and opens the door to all ignoble passions.
Muhammad's paradise is nothing but a place of material and gross enjoyment.
It is there, at this point, that the eternal civilizer, the Church of Jesus Christ, awaits them to stop them, make them retreat, uproot them, country by country, their immense conquest, trying to bring them to the light of the Gospel , as well as true civilization.

CHAPTER XVII

ARABIC SCIENCES AND ARTS

The Arab scientific and artistic movement has been exalted with much exaggeration.
Before Muhammad, there was nothing between them: it was complete ignorance. After the establishment of Islam, science was penetrated through the teachings of the Qur'an and the comments it was provoking, as well as, and even more, by the immediate contact with the civilized peoples it conquered.
In the first century that came under the rule of Islam, no serious scientific movement appears.
A century later, some men of more acute intelligence and more accentuated spirit appear.
As was the case with all reforms, a spontaneous movement of contradiction to the Qur'an arose and from this opposition came numerous criticisms, comparisons, studies, about the attributes of God and human freedom.
This first movement of reflection was soon stimulated by contact with ancient philosophy.
In 750, the Abassides called Nestorian sages to the court of Baghdad and charged them with translating into Arabic a large number of scientific works belonging to Greek, Hebrew, Syriac, Persian and Indian literature.
It is these works that will serve as a basis for the intellectual development of the nation.
Al-Kendi (870) begins the movement, drawing inspiration from Aristotle to write a "Physics" and a '' treatise on intelligence ".
Al-Farabi (950), equally Aristotelian, but uniting Plato's ideas to the master's teaching, formed Platonic syncretism.
lbn-Sina (Avicenna, 1036), completes and surpasses its predecessors. Endowed with an early intelligence, he covered almost the entire cycle of known sciences.
It is said that he had reread Aristotle's Metaphysics forty times and knew it by heart. At the age of 20 he started to write and produced a prodigious number of works. He is a philosopher and metaphysician: he was the first, in the East, who proclaimed the distinction between essence and existence, in all beings outside of God.
Al-Gasali (1058) is more of a destroyer than a builder of science. He is the great defender of the Qur'an, in the name of Muslim orthodoxy. It defends what it knows, without taking into account what it does not know and which could be better. It is the Kant of Arab philosophy, seeking to demean science and speculative reason, to raise the doctrines and morals of the Qur'an. His writings constitute the sum of Mohammedanism, as the Summa Thomist is the expression of Catholic doctrine.
After Al-Gasali comes the decline of the sciences in the East, while it is gaining momentum in Spain. There, men of a certain value appeared, such as Avempace (1138), Tofail (1185), who fought his counterpart Al-Ga sali, seeking to rehabilitate philosophical speculation.
Doctor Averroes (1198), from Córdoba, is the last and the main representative of Arabic-Hispanic science.
He is an expert commentator on Aristotle. His doctrine is a fusion of Arab Peripatetics from the East and those from Spain.
As writers, due to the precociousness of their talents and the multiplicity of their works, these Arab sages deserve all praise, however, agreeing that they produced nothing of personnel. They are commentators, copyists, fusionists of the ideas of others, with nothing to gather or perfect. His books are a fusion of Eastern emanatist pantheism, neo-Platonic synchronism, mysticism and spiritism, denial of personality in the future life, etc.
When Arab philosophy entered the Latin West, it made a deep impression there. It is through the Arabs that the scholastics learned most of Aristotle's works.
Some were seduced by Averroism, which they considered the culmination of Aristotelism. Others knew how to make a happy choice between these new doctrines, separating the truth from the error, the real from the fictional.
So did S. Tomás, taking many of his quotes from the Logic and Philosophy of Algazel, which praises Avicenna, but fights Averroes.
Averroes has the principle of two truths, condemned by the Church, according to which a proposition can be true in philosophy, false in theology - which is absurd, the truth being one and indivisible, in all branches of human knowledge. (1).
(1) Per rationem concludo unum, firmiter tamen tenco opposi tum per fidem.
Today the great Arab theories are abandoned.
No one else admits the celestial spheres animated or moved by higher intelligences, nor the agent intellect separated from the world, which is the negation of immortality. In fact, assuming that the material and individual intellect is mortal, only humanity is immortal and not the individual, and immortality is a fable that reason cannot admit, according to the Arabs.
The error consists in admitting the impersonality of the intellect, in separating it from individuals, which is impossible, since intelligence is inherent to each individual in particular, and not a unique one for all men.
As for the other branches of the humanities, they received no impulse, nothing new and no improvement from the Arabs.
The Moors of Spain had representatives in the exact sciences, in Astronomy, in Algebra and even in Medicine, after the studies of Avicenna and Averroes, however, in very limited spheres and for a short time.
Architecture, although highly praised by some writers, owes little to them as well, as what is called the arabesque style (interweaving of foliage and fruit) is nothing but a change in the Byzantine style.
It should be noted that the culture of these sciences was limited to the Moors in Spain, which proves that this scientific movement was based on immediate contact with the Latin peoples and their influence on the new Muslim generation. As for the other peoples under the domain of the Crescent, they produced nothing in the scientific, social or architectural field.

CHAPTER XVIII

THE FIRST DEFEAT

Muslim power had reached its peak, not only in Asia, in Africa, but even in Spain, where it dominated the Crescent, and from where it threatened the whole of Europe.
Never, since Attila, had a more ferocious and more powerful invasion threatened the civilized world.
With immense, fierce, fearless armies, determined to win or die, Muslims penetrated southern France today, through the Pyrenees, conquered Septimonia, Narbonne, small southern kingdoms, and their chief Abdel-Rahmon threatened the central kingdom of Aquitaine .
King Eudes tried to stop them, but he saw his troops annihilated in front of Bordeaux, their state being pillaged, devastated and the inhabitants slaughtered en masse.
Eudes then resorted to the King of the Franks, recognized the dependence of his kingdom and obtained his assistance to fight the common enemy of Christendom.
The situation was very serious.
The entire universe was going to be dominated by Muhammad, all nations were going to be enslaved by brutal, conquering and anti-Christian domination. The whole world was going to form the empire of Islam.
Carlos, king of the Franks, raised his armies of heroes, strong men, as determined to win or die as the Muslims.
Carlos gathered his troops on the Poitiers plains, where he met Abdel-Rahmon, in October 732.
The fate of humanity was going to be decided in this fight.
The army of the Franks was the only barrier capable of stopping the Muslim avalanche: there it would decide whether the world would be Christian or Muslim.
With a strategic skill that can excite the envy of today's warriors, Kings Carlos and Eudes combined a surprise battle, a trap, in which they wanted to crush the powerful enemy.
Carlos divided his armies into two parts. He took the supreme command of the strong and already strong troops, and entrusted King Eudes with another army that was to attack the Muslims from the rear, when they opened fire on the Franks in front of them.
The trap had its full effect. It was a new tactic for the Arabs, who imprisoned them offhand.
During 7 days the two armies observed each other without getting into a fight, delay prepared by Carlos to leave King Eudes the time to involve the Muslim troops.
Finally, the Moors opened their wings and spread out on the plain, and at the sign of Abdel-Rahmon, the Arab light cavalry, similar to a storm cloud, launched itself at the Frankish troops.
These, immobile, in closed masses, covered by their iron armor, on their great horses of the north, opposed a true iron wall to the repeated loads of the Arabs, without reaching a breach in their ranks.
Suddenly, a fierce war cry echoed behind the Muslim army: it was the cry of the Eudes army that had surrounded the enemy and set his field on fire.
Abdel-Rahmon's army was surrounded and had to face two formidable troops.
Disorder, the effect of surprise, opened the ranks of the Arabs. Then, Carlos gave the sign of the definitive attack: the iron wall moves, advances, and launches itself on the Arab forces. The battle ax and the Franks' broad sword reap lines after squadron lines, slaughtering everything with fierce cold blood and tenacity.
Abdel-Ramon sought to save soldiers, but in vain: he succumbs to the elite of his troops, pierced with blows, crushed under the horses' feet. The Arabs retreat, flee, seeking refuge in their field, destroyed by the soldiers of Eudes.
Night came. Carlos stopped the persecution of the enemy, and the next day, at dawn, the Franks saw nothing more than a bloody plain, strewn with corpses.
Darkness had protected the flight of Muslims, but left more than 375,000 dead on the battlefield.
This heroic victory saved Christendom, forced the Arabs to abandon France, never to enter this land where they had just suffered the first defeat, and where they lost the choice of their troops.
The battle of Poitiers was forever memorable, leaving Carlos the name of Carlos Martelo, because they said that he had hammered the Saracens with his battle ax. This name remained with him and posterity kept it as a title of glory, calling it Carlos Martelo.
The brave king had well earned recognition from the Church and the world. Pope Gregory III addressed him a letter of congratulations.
This is the power of Islam overcome in Gaul, repelled beyond the Pyrenees, but preserved in Spain, Africa and Asia.
That is where he is reorganizing his forces, that is where threats to Europe continue. Not being able to penetrate Gaul, where the ax of Carlos Martelo and his Franks gives him the creeps, he seeks to invade Europe, Italy, Greece and Turkey.
It is a new danger. However, God, who protects his children, will know at the right time to raise new forces to repel him and not to allow the slavery of Christian Europe.

CHAPTER XIX

THE FIRST CROSSES

It is one of the most resplendent pages in the history of the Catholic Church, which we have to analyze here. It is the heroism of faith, of value, of courage, of holy enthusiasm that we have to travel, and that is the subject of an epic poem, rather than a historical narration.
The history of the Crusaders is as simple in its origin as it is sublime in its execution, and fruitful in its mediate consequences.
The famous José de Maistré, speaking of these distant expeditions, said very well: "None of them were successful, but none of them failed".
At the beginning of the 11th century, Muslims were the dominators of Jerusalem, where they harassed, persecuted and, for the least reason, killed Christians.
At that time there were numerous pilgrims who went to the Holy Land, out of personal devotion, or in fulfillment of any promise.
A French Priest of Amiens, named Peter the Hermit, having made the pilgrimage to the Holy Land and seen the arrogance and cruelty of the Muslims, could not contain his indignation.
He receives the confidences and tears of the Old Patriarch of Jerusalem, Dom Simeão, and back to the West, he finds, at every step, Christians, who travel persecuted, abused and even murdered by the infidels.
Such a spectacle moves and exalts him.
He goes to the Pope to whom he tells everything and asks for the authorization to preach a Crusade in Europe, to end these abuses and cruelties.
Urbano II, then reigning, for a magnanimous and tender heart, he is moved and decides to save Christianity from the yoke of Muslims.
It was in 1094.
Urbano II, then reigning, pope with a magnificent heart by Carlos Martelo, who had so heroically beaten the Muslims on the Poitiers plains and closed the entrance to Gaul.
The Pope calls a large council in Clermont.
There are 14 archbishops, 225 bishops, 90 ambassadors from all Christian peoples, warriors from all European countries.
Next to the Pope, there is the brave preacher of the Crusade, Peter the Hermit, dressed in his penitent's burel, bare feet, bare front.
Urbano II addresses the crowd: "Warriors, he says, you who so often seek war pretexts with your innocent neighbors, here is a legitimate war. Turn against the infidels the weapons that you draw without reason against each other. .
It is not a question of avenging the injuries done to men, but of God. It is not a question of conquering a city or a fortress, but the Holy Land.
Soldiers of the living God, rise up. "With
these words, an immense cry rises from this throbbing crowd: God wants it! God wants it!
" May this cry be your motto of war, continues the Pontiff, and be the Cross your banner "!
Adernar de Monteuil, Bishop of Puy, is the first to put on the crusade insignia, that is: a red woolen cross on the chest, or on the front of the military helmet.
These soldiers of Christ are the Crusaders and in just a few days their number is incalculable.The
Christian Europe is shaken and mobilized to the voice of the Roman Pontiff.
Among these · warriors are the most beautiful men from France, England, Italy: Hugue, the great Godofredo de Bulhões, Roberto without fear, Duke of Normandy, Raimundo, count of Tolosa, Stephen, count of Bloro, Bohemon, prince of Tarento and his nephew, Knight Tancredo.
Europe's school is there, ahead of 600,000 men, gathered under the banners of the Crusade.
The result of this first expedition, because it was poorly directed, was not what was expected. However, they took the cities of Nicaea, Antioch, and Jerusalem from the hands of Muslims. When the news reached Rome, it was four days since the Holy Pontiff had left the land.
This death mourned the laurels of triumph. Conquered Jerusalem, Godofredo de Bulhões, Duke of Lorraine, was proclaimed king, but he did not want to accept this title, but that of defender and baron of the Holy Sepulcher. God preserve me, he said, from wearing a golden crown, in the place where my Master brought a crown of thorns.
Two Latin patriarchs were established, in Jerusalem and Antioch, forming the new kingdom of Constantinople.
Thus ended the first Crusade. Seven others were to follow it, in the space of 200 years, from 1095 to 1270.

* * *

The second Crusade, in 1141, was preached by Saint Bernard. It was about three years ago that a first disaster had victimized the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem.
The important city of Edessa had been taken over by the Muslims and the Christian population had been completely exterminated in the midst of the most cruel torments.
A cry of helplessness and help echoed across Europe, and St. Bernard, with all the eloquence of his virtue and talent, went on to preach a new crusade.
The king of France, Luiz VII, took charge of the expedition, assisted by Conrado III, emperor of Germany. There were efforts and goodwill, but the perfidy of the Greeks, along with certain errors of the Crusaders, failed the new expedition.
The chiefs returned without having been able to do anything for the benefit of the persecuted and leaving Palestine to the greatest danger.
São Bernardo suffered immensely from this disaster. National pride intended to make the setbacks suffered on him, to the point that, in order to restore and patent the truth, the saint was forced to write an apology, pointing out the real culprits of this disaster.

* * *  

Half a century after this frustrated expedition, in 1171, Saladin, encouraged by the dissent of the Europeans, seized Egypt, Syria, and founded a vast Muslim empire, which completely surrounded the kingdom of Jerusalem, from the Euphrates to the Nile.
At a meeting with Christians in Tiberias, more than 20,000 crusaders stayed on the battlefield. The last king of Jerusalem, Guy de Lusignac, was imprisoned, his capital resumed and his kingdom destroyed.
Guilherme, Archbishop of Tire, preached a third Crusade and his eloquent word shook Europe.
In order to defray expenses, a new tax, called saladine tithes, was raised in the great nations.
The King of France, Felipe Augusto, the Emperor of Germany Frederico Barbarroxa, and the King of England, Ricardo Coração de Leão, took the direction of the new Crusade, made up of 500,000 warriors.
Everything started well and the efforts of the courageous troops were crowned with full success. They conquered the island of Cyprus, assaulted São João do Acre.
Unfortunately, the bosses did not know how to maintain the union between themselves, which paralyzed the many successes that they could have achieved.

* * *

A fourth Crusade, stimulated by Pope Innocent III, was launched in 1200, with the preacher being Father Fulques, from Neuilly.
A large, well-equipped army was on standby; within a few months, however, the kings who had promised to take the lead, failed to speak. Venice, which had promised its fleet to transport the army, took care of its commercial gain beforehand, so that troops were forced to limit their conquest to Constantinople.
They besieged the city that fell into their power, being proclaimed Balduino IX, Count of Flanders, the first Emperor of the new Latin Empire (1204).
It was on this occasion that the patriarchate of Constantinople was founded.
This fourth Crusade, with regard to the fight against Muslims, had little result, however, it took advantage of much in relation to the Greek schism, temporarily removing it and destroying its forces.
It was a new failure to conquer the Holy Land.
And this failure echoed so painfully in France and Germany that it aroused a real indignation among the children, and an indignation of enthusiasm.
The armies, being unable to regain the cradle and tomb of Jesus Christ, by the forces of arms, the children intended to overcome the resistance by the force of their innocence and their pleas.
It was then seen what the world had never seen. In 1212, a French boy, Estêvão, in Vandéia, and a young German, Nicolau, from Colonha, without prior arrangement, each raised in their own country the banner of the holy land and dragged more than 50,000 children in France. and Germany, determined to liberate the Holy Land.
They went to Palestine, with unparalleled enthusiasm, but unfortunately, with no less foresight, appropriate to their age.
French children, numbering some 35,000, embarked in Marseille, but, hit by a storm, and several attacks by Muslims, were swallowed by the waves of the Mediterranean Sea, or slaves felled by the privateers.
Those from Germany, numbering some 15,000, having crossed the Alps, perished on the way, due to fatigue and starvation. Those that survived reached Brindise, Italy, where they were collected and returned to their homeland.
It was the enthusiastic blood of the innocent that was mixed with the discord and disunity of the great armies, to give the world a lesson in faith, worth and manly enthusiasm.

CHAPTER XX

THE END OF CRUSADES

Fortunately, the voice of Pope Innocent III and his successor, Honorius III, sparked new enthusiasms, as provoked by the pleas and martyrdom of the 50,000 children, immolated by the desire to free the tomb of the Divine Master.
In 1217, a crowd of pilgrims, coming from the Lower Rhine and Phrygia, with a large retinue, went to the East. It was the fifth Crusade.
Encouraged by this new effort, John of Brienne, king of Jerusalem since 1210, took the pilgrims to Egypt and seized the city of Damietta, which was considered the key to the region.
To this news, the joy of the Christians was equal only to the astonishment and dismay of the Muslims.
New troops flocked from Europe. The sultan of Egypt, Alkamil, in exchange for Damamieta, offered to restore the kingdom of Jerusalem, with its old borders. The offer, however, was declined.
Unfortunately, this triumph was short-lived.
Attacked by infidel armies, the Crusaders were forced, eleven years later, to abandon Damietta and all of Egypt.

* * *

The sixth Crusade was organized by Pope Gregory IX, who had just been elected Supreme Pontiff, at the age of 80.
Firm and resolute in taking up the holy places, the Pope reminded the Emperor of Germany, Frederick II, of his oath to preside over the Crusade. After much reluctance, the hypocritical monarch took the lead of the German army, and in 1227 took the road to Palestine with 50 ships, resolved, not to fight, but to use diplomacy to recover Jerusalem.
The timing was favorable.
The Sultan of Egypt was at war with the Prince of Damascus; he then asked for Frederick's support, promising to restore Jerusalem and Palestine.
The Jaffa treaty was signed, including a 10-year truce, during which Frederick pledged not to let Europeans attack Egypt.
Jerusalem belonged momentarily to Christians. The Prince of Damascus had destroyed the fortresses and fortifications. The Crusaders were prohibited from rebuilding the walls.
The Patriarch, the clergy and the military orders were able to return to the city, but without obtaining the restitution of the kidnapped goods.
Muslims retained the free exercise of their worship and jurisdiction over the nationals of Jerusalem. The sultan was only in possession of the villages around the city.
In 1229, Frederick made his solemn entry into the holy city, proclaimed himself king of Jerusalem, girding himself, with his own hands, the crown of royalty.
The seventh Crusade appeared from an unpleasant perspective. The situation was distressing and required urgent action.
The East was undergoing an immense revolution. The Tartars, out of the depths of Asia, were hurling themselves, at one time, over Europe and the Muslim empire, from Baghdad to Egypt.
At the same time, the Turks were rebelling in Syria, defeating the last Christian army and taking over Jerusalem, surrendering themselves to the Sultan of Egypt.
Pope Innocent IV, in vain appealed for the help of Christian peoples. No one was in a position to undertake new expeditions.
The king of France, São Luiz, however, decided to comply with the request of the Holy Father, and hastily gathered his army of brave, however, insufficient in number. He himself, with his brother, Carlos de Anjou and Eduardo de Inglaterra, commanded the Crusade.
São Luiz intended to attack the Muslim power in Egypt itself, starting with Tunisia that would serve as an entry point.
On May 15, 1249, São Luiz launched the anchor in front of Damieta, and a few days later he took over the City, converting the great mosque of the place into the Catholic Church.
As the Sultan's troops reassembled the Nile, the Crusaders followed them to Monsourah. It was a first success, however, soon followed by setbacks. The sultan even intercepted São Luiz's communications with Damieta, the supply center.
Soon, the King of France was arrested and most of his troops were taken prisoner (1250). Peace negotiations have been opened. St. Louis was forced to evacuate Damietta and pay one million pesos of gold, for the freedom of all Christian prisoners in Egypt.
He was the king with the remains of his armies for S. João do Acre, with the secret hope of not leaving Syria without providing the security of the Christians. He also spent four years in Palestine, negotiating with the Egyptian emissaries to obtain the liberation of the Christians and making a pious pilgrimage to Nazareth, Monte Tabor and Cana, and strengthening the last war squares of the kingdom: S. João, Caesaréia, Jaffa and Sidon .
In 1254 he received letters informing him of the death of his holy Mother, Branca de Castile, who during the absence of the king, had ruled France. The seventh Crusade was over.

* * *

The eighth and last Crusade will begin.
Muslims could not fail to exploit the weakness of Europeans. The few conquests of the Crusaders were in imminent danger.
The Papacy launched a new alarm in 1266. Pope Clement addressed São Luiz again. He responded incontinently to the wishes of the Holy Father, and although he found little enthusiasm among the people, he resolved to organize the new Crusade, accompanied by his three sons and Edward, King of England.
Tunis was the first objective of the Crusade.
The Tunisian sultan had sworn to French Muslims to convert to Christianity, along with a large number of his subjects. Such a commitment, however, was illusory and a trap.
The Muslim prince ordered the sources to be poisoned. The plague affected the army, and in a few days, it was a huge death toll among the French. The king saw his son João Tristão die, and fell himself, victim of the terrible scourge.
The pious monarch ordered him to lie on the ashes, offered his suffering and life to God and expired as king and saint on August 25, 1270.
Carlos de Anjou, another son of São Luiz, signed an honorable treaty and returned to their states.
With São Luiz, the era of the Cruzados ended, which began in 1095 and ended in 1270.
In vain Pope Gregory X, at the Council of Lyon, (1274) sought to arouse the enthusiasm of European nations. His voice found a small echo. Christians in the East, given to themselves; they lost all the positions won.
Tripoli was snatched from them in 1289, then the city of Acre or Ptolomai, the last protection of Christendom, and Palestine fell to the Muslims, who continue to this day, to dominate the Holy Land and the great shrines of Christianity.
Winners in Asia, Muslims were losing ground in Europe's possessions.
Sicily was taken from them, already in the eleventh century.
The Normans in Southern Italy, where they had been established since 1017, conquered Apulia and Calabria, thus ending Greek rule and founding an independent, Catholic kingdom under the sovereignty of the Roman Church. They then went to Sicily with Duke Roberto Guiscardo.
In 30 years of combat, Roberto's brother succeeded in taking the island from the Muslims and ruling it as his brother's vassal.
In Spain, although it was not yet possible to end the power and domination of the Moors, it was contained within very narrow limits.
After the Caliphate of Cordoba was divided, after the fall of the Umayyads (1031) into a series of small kingdoms (emirates), Christian princes were able to carry out new conquests.
The decisive battle of the "Navas de Tolosa" (1212) won by the Christians, brought most of Andalusia into their hands. Only in the extreme south, where the emir Muhammad Aben Alamar had founded the kingdom of Granada (1238), the power of the Arabs remained until 1492, when the Moors were expelled by the Catholic kings from the rest of their conquered domains.

CHAPTER XXI

DECADENCE OF ISLAMISM

In several countries, Islamism was weakening, although it still retained a preponderance in Asia Minor and Africa.
A first. time, the Church held its power in Poitiers, by the arm of Carlos Martelo.
A second time, through an effort of two centuries, the Church organized eight successive Crusades, which did not end, but shook its power on the foundations.
The Crescent continued to dominate Jerusalem, as it continued to sow terror in the West and oppress the Christians of the East. For 10 centuries, Islam has stood before the ports of Christianity, to punish the rebellion of the baptized peoples, to awaken them from sleep, to stimulate virtue and to provoke heroism.
God directs the world.
Believing and fervent Europe, lived in peace and prosperity. Skeptical and complacent Europe found only wars and exterminations. It is the finger of God and the hand of his Providence.
After the titanic effort of the Crusades, we see the Muslim power stopped in its projects of conquest, by the invasion of the Mongols and Tamerlin.
It is true that Muhammad's great dream of conquering the world was still simmering in the hearts of his followers.
The struggles continue unceasing, inflamed and bloody between the Christians and the Ottoman Turks.
Muhammad II vowed to wrest Constantinople from the hands of the Greeks. The latter were worthy of divine punishment, for the schism they had carried out, separating from Rome in 1054.
The time for divine vengeance came.
On April 6, 1453, Muhammad II arrived with an army of 300,000 men. It surrounds Constantinople with formidable artillery and launches its janissaries to assault the bastions.
In vain Pope Nicholas V begs for help from Christianity. Only Venetians and Genovesans listened to the Sovereign Pontiff's voice.
Inside the city, the inhabitants are divided and persevering in the schism. They have an emperor who is a hero, Constantine Paleologist, zealous supporter of the Union of the two Churches of the East and West.
Paleologist with a handful of brave, only 10,000 men, spends his nights in prayer, and the day in combat.
Under a veritable rain of Greek fire (1) which the Turks employed as aid, he came and went, shouting at his soldiers.
If Constantinople perishes today, I will bury myself under its ruins!
The hero, true to his oath, seeing the city taken by the Turks, throws himself in the middle of his ranks, where he receives the death blow.
(I) It was a chemical fire that burned over the water. Invention of the Greek engineer Galinico.
The city of the great Constantine disappears, having existed for 1,123 years. 40,000 Christians were buried in the midst of the ruins. 50,000 were reduced to slavery. Others were able to escape the winning fanatics and flee to Italy, in the Venetian boats, taking with them the precious spoils of the Fatherland: Greek, sacred and profane manuscripts, rich treasures from the past, removed from the flames and the ignorance of Muslims.
Greece penetrated Rome with its poets, philosophers, artists and sages. The East was transplanted to the West. Turks rather than the Pope: the Greeks had shouted after the Council of Florence. And his foolish vote was granted. The Turks became the lords of Constantinople and the cathedral of Hagia Sophia was transformed into a Muslim mosque.
It was the height of Muslim power! From then on, it will be the fall, the decay, rapid and fatal, that will penetrate its ranks and organizations.
* * *
Mohammed II, proud of his victory, takes the fastidious name of: Master and sovereign of both parts of the world. Its domination extends to Europe, Romania, Macedonia, Greece, Wallachia, Moldova and Serbia (Balkans).
It takes the islands from the archipelago to the Venetians and its troops take the incursions to the south of Italy.
They could not, however, take over Belgrade, defended by Huniade and a Franciscan religious, San] Capistrano. They encountered the same setback in front of the island of Rhodes, where the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem inflicted enormous losses on them.
The Knights kept the island for two centuries. They lost it only in 1522, having defended it so well and so bravely, that Sultan Solimão exclaimed, seeing the great master Villars: What a pity to expel such a brave Christian from his home!
Charles V gave them, in 1530, the island of Malta, which they kept until 1798, in continuous struggles against the infidels, on land and at sea.
By taking Constantinople, the Muslim empire was omnipotent. He held the key to the East in his hands and could, at will, plague the West.
For more than a century, he was the terror of Christians and Europeans; however, the decay began and the Turkish empire was marching in great strides, towards its final ruin, where we have seen it, for a long time, struggling miserably.
Today's Turkey is nothing but a decomposing corpse, which lives only by the will of England and Russia.
The decay started mainly in the Gulf of Lepanto, in 1571, and under the walls of Vienna, in 1683.
The most illustrious sovereign of Turkey was without contradiction Solimão II, the magnificent one, whose kingdom extended between the years of 1520 and 1566.
At the same time, it was recommended by the wars in Europe, Asia and Africa, by its great administrative institutions, knowing how to maintain a healthy balance in everything.
After him the Turks declined with Selim II, whose marine fleet had been wiped out at Lepanto.
At this time, the Holy Father Pio V. was seated on the pontifical throne. To repel Selim II, he went to Venice and Spain, and accordingly equipped a formidable fleet against the Turks.
D. João da Austria, son of Carlos V, commanded it.
He met the Turks in the Gulf of Lepanto, in the middle of the Ionian Sea, between Greece and Morea. It was October 7, 1571.
The Turks, commanded by Selim II, lost 600 cannon pieces, 200 ships and 30,000 men.
The Pope received the revelation of triumph from heaven, and suddenly exclaimed. "Let's give thanks to God! The victory is for the Christians".
Immediately, in all the basilicas of Rome, the solemn "Te Deum" was sung and the Pope, in remembrance of this victory, instituted the feast of the rosary. The warriors had begun the fight, imploring Mary as the Star of the Sea, and had raised the white flag, with the image of the Virgin, on the tip of their masts.
Finally, the Crescent was retreating before the Cross. Another defeat like that of Lepanto, and the Muslim power would be annihilated.

* * *

Such a defeat should not take long.
Muhammad IV was still reigning, and he once said with insolence: "Soon my horse will eat corn on the altar of St. Peter in Rome".
Soon his vizier Cara Mustafa set out against Austria in April 1683.
Pope Innocent XI prescribes public prayers, and he himself, setting an example, works, pleads and mortifies himself to achieve the triumph of God. Christian weapons.
The victorious Turks of the Austrians are preparing to occupy Vienna, which has endured, for 45 days, the most terrible assaults. Flames were already devouring convents, churches and public buildings. The burnt outskirts formed a waist of fire around the desperate city.
Everything was lost !.
No! The great, the sublime, the pious Sobieski, king of Poland, approached with an army of 20,000 Poles, brave and pious like him, to liberate Austria and its capital.
It was on September 12, 1683. The apostolic nuncio celebrated Holy Mass, which King Sobieski, attended with arms crossed ... They
all received communion and then sang a hymn to the Blessed Virgin.
It was not a song, it was a long sob of commotion, hope and a determination to win or die.
Willing to give his life for the liberation of Christianity, Sobieski, at the foot of the altar, armed his son, a knight, so that, in case of death, he would succeed him in command of the army.
One last blessing from the Pope's Nuncio, one last recommendation from Sobieski, one last shout to the Virgin of Victories, and the army spread its lines, the banners waved, the bugles rang out. And the defenders, like lions, launched themselves if about the enemy.
The sun, when rising, saw the prayers of the Christians ...
And when it disappeared on the horizon, it contemplated the victory of the heroes.
The plains around the city were covered with 40. 000 corpses of Turks.
Sobieski presented the Pope with flags taken from the enemy, with these famous words: "I came, I saw, God won!"
Julius Caesar, forgetting God, had said: Veni, vidi, vici. I came, I saw, I won! However, Caesar belonged to the glory of pagan Rome. Sobieski, the glory of Christian Rome.
Islam was vanquished. After 10 centuries, the Muslim power will still be exhausted, agonizing, without a life of its own, without progress, without an ideal, without a future.
And the Church of Jesus Christ that he fought with such fury and tenacity, remains younger and more alive, inaugurating new and imperishable destinations on the ruins of Islam.

CHAPTER XXII

THE FALSITY OF ISLAMISM

For an instant let us set aside, the life, teachings and propagation of Muhammad's religion, to enter into the serene judgment of his doctrine, studying it, on the part of its author, according to the principles of an intelligent and logical deduction.
There are several religions, but there is only one true religion, because if there is only one God, there can only be one right way to serve this God.
How to discover true religion among the many sects that claim to have the truth?
It's simple and available to everyone.
1. God is the Creator and the Lord of man. Religion consists in the relations between God and man and these relations were born in the very act of man's creation.
It was at that sublime moment that, in giving life to man, God became his father and man became the son of God.
One who gives life is called a father and one who receives life is called a son.
Therefore, true religion must have been born in the very cradle of humanity, together with the first man.
2. True religion, being the father's work for his son, must necessarily adapt to all man's faculties: it must be light for intelligence, love for the heart, strength for the will, leading man to his supreme destiny, which is eternal happiness.
3. Since God is the truth, religion, made by Him, must be coherent and immutable, absolutely excluding all contradictions and successive changes.
Here are three principles that allow us, without fear of errors, to discover the true religion.

* * *

Let us now apply these three principles to Islam, and we will soon see its falsity, as it does not satisfy any of these requirements, which are absolutely required.
Islam was not born in the cradle of humanity, but came from the teachings of Muhammad, who imagined, codified and bequeathed it to men, not in the beginning of humanity, but in the year 612, in Mecca, organizing it in the year 622 in Medina , where the pseudo-prophet fixed the center of his reform.
Before this time, there was neither Quran nor Mohammedan law. It started at this point, and it cannot go any further.
The reformer attributes his doctrine to Archangel Gabriel. However, he has nothing with this archangel, since religion must be revealed by God Himself, and not by the angels who, being also God's servants, have no power to establish a divine religion.
Islam cannot descend beyond Muhammad, and no relationship, no connection whatsoever with the religion founded by God, transmitted by Moses and the patriarchs, until it came to Jesus Christ, who fulfilled all the prophecies in his person, and ended by the Apostle St. John, the cycle of authentic divine revelations.
Muhammad's religion did not reach God, it is not a divine religion. It is the work of its founder, a human religion, in contradiction with the divine religion.
Therefore, it is a false religion.

* * *

True religion must adapt to man's faculties, that is, it must be light, love and strength and lead man to his eternal destiny.
As we have seen, Islam does not meet any of these requirements.
It is not light.
Islam did not contribute to the development of the human spirit. On the contrary, it materializes the spirit, closes the horizon for a pure, holy, selfless life, which ends in divine happiness, and not in material happiness as the Koran teaches.
The sky of Islam offers addiction as the ultimate reward of virtue: there will even be palaces, riches, pleasures, women and everything that human misery can dream of to know itself and satisfy its human instincts.
It is not love.
Divine love does not figure in the Qur'an, there is fear, terror, even the admiration of the greatness and power of God, never love. Spiritual, holy, supernatural love is unknown in the law of the pseudo-prophet. Only the voluptuousness of pleasure, sensuality appears in it, making it brutal, thus annihilating pure love, the ideal love that God sowed in the human heart. For the Mohammedan, to love is to enjoy. For the spiritual man, to love is to give. For Islam, love is in pleasure; for Christianity, love is in pleasing the one you love.
It is not strength.
It is a violence of war, of struggle, of conquest by the fanaticism of domination, but it is not a willpower for good, for virtue, for man's spiritual greatness, for his improvement, for the realization of a higher ideal.
Everything is materialized. The spiritual, holiness, is an unknown ideal for Islam.
You only know the brute force of war. It ignores the will-building force in virtue.
And then, it does not lead to eternal salvation. This salvation is virtue, holiness, spiritual heroism, self-denial, contempt for the passing goods of the world.
All of this does not exist in Islam. Therefore, it is a false religion.
The third requirement is consistency and immutability, essential parts of divine doctrine.
Here, even more than in the preceding points, the religion of Muhammad is out of all appreciation.
It seems that Islamism could easily avoid any appearance of contradiction, since it took as intellectual baggage only three simple and clear dogmas, borrowed from Philosophy: - the Unity of God, the Immortality of the soul and the Sanction in eternity, of good and of bad.
Unfortunately, Muhammad made his comment and the applications of his doctrine, and sowed the contradictions in them, full hands.
He presents himself as a continuator of Jesus Christ and the seal of the prophets. (1) Now, Jesus declared that he would not be continued or completed by anyone and that his Church (doctrine) would remain until the end of the centuries, until the day of general judgment (2).
On the other hand, it is striking that Muhammad's work, due to its morals, its social and religious doctrine, is not a progress, but a huge retreat in the doctrine of Jesus Christ, as we see clearly in the exposition of the previous chapters of this study.
And the Koran itself, the holy book of Islam, how many inconsistencies it does not present!
(1) Chap. Quran III - V. 77 - Chap. IV - V. 161 - Chap. 33-V. 40 {2) Math. 28, 19 - 17, 17 - XXIV, .24.
The pseudo-prophet composed it, or made it compose from beginning to end, having to be consistent with himself.
However, he did not know how to do it and he saw it himself.
To get out of embarrassment, he attributed it to São Gabriel.
This very admirable sentence of inconsistencies and contradiction, as it is offensive and blasphemous to God: "If we omit a verse from the Qur'an, or if we erase his memory from your heart, we bring you another better or similar".
Here is God who corrects himself, who completes himself, who perfects himself.
As a consequence, Muslim theologians removed a number of passages from the Qur'an, which were clearly forgotten. Some were abrogated as to the letter and the study; they don't count anymore. They are divine lapses, distractions from God, lack of memory of God. Other passages were abrogated "as to the letter, however, they were replaced, as to the meaning, by similar ones.
Still others were completely crossed out and canceled: they were divine ignorance. Finally, others remained in the book, but were abrogated, as to the meaning, constituting (note this well) the contradictions officially recognized and preserved ...
There are 207 verses in the Qur'an that always appear in the text, but which are abrogated by 93 others.
The fifth verse of Surah 9 includes only 124 others. The abrogated revelations were replaced by better or more comfortable ones, which, as needed, allowed Muhammad to violate his own laws on marriage, to continue in the name of Alah (God) his plunder, robbery, murder and shameful trafficking. (1).
The prophet himself is ashamed of these contradictions and crimes and confesses, in the Qur'an, the enormity of his crime.
Bossuet had formulated this safe principle: "What changes is false: the truth does not change".
Islamism has changed, contradicted itself, corrected itself; therefore, it is false.
Let us stop here; it is enough for a sincere, loyal person, looking for the truth, to verify that Islam is a false religion, it is not the divine religion, the only true religion.
Where is this religion? We have already said: It is the religion of Jesus Christ, preserved intact in the teaching of the Catholic, Apostolic, Roman Church.
Only the Catholic religion is based on the cradle of humanity, only it adapts perfectly to the needs of man; it alone is consistent in its teaching and unchanging in its doctrine; it alone has the promises of eternal life and the certainty of perpetual existence.

(1) Quran C. 33-V. 28-53-66, 1 - 2 etc.

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION

Every book requires a conclusion.
For us Catholics, the conclusion of Muhammad's life and doctrine is simple and short. Mohammedanism is an all-human religion, the work of man and cannot bring us closer to God, because only a divine force can lift us up to God, which can only be derived from divine doctrine.
Now, only God can communicate such a doctrine, and this communication is called: revelation. - True religion must therefore be a religion revealed by God Himself. In these conditions, among all religious sects, there is only and exclusively the Catholic religion. Only it can trace, without interruption, from century to century, to Jesus Christ, who is God.
The Protestant, going through the centuries, has to stop "in front of Luther, its founder, in 1517, being unable to go beyond, he is disconnected from God, because that is where his sect begins.
Islam can reach until the 6th century, but it has to stop in front of your prophet Muhammad, who is the origin of your religion.
The schismatic Greeks can extend their research to Fódb, patriarch of Constantinople, in 866, but there his eyes stop
. Therefore, they can only produce human and not divine effects, they are false religions.

* * *

Muhammad founded Islam, or Muslim religion, in 612. From whom did he receive this mission?
He says it was from S. Gabriel. But, no evidence cites in its favor. As we have seen, it is a mistake, a cleverness, a pretext.
And, even admitting such a revelation, Islam would still be a false religion, since the divine religion must be revealed by God Himself and not by an angel.
Angels do not have this power, just as they do not have the power to create. They are creatures, they cannot be creators; they are messengers of God, they cannot replace him, but simply carry out his orders.
Muhammad, therefore, received no divine mission.
And, as a man, who was he?
In the beginning, a poor orphan, without resources, without education, without a future.
Then he was a camel driver, a traveler, a merchant, earning his daily bread for his work.
He became a man of fortune through his marriage to Khadidja, a wealthy widow.
Overwhelmed by religious obsession, moved by an immense ambition, he wanted to gather in his hands the spiritual and civil power of his people: he pretended to have apparitions of the angel S. Gabriel, who he never had, and he intended to receive from the angel a new law, to reform the Arab people.
Finally, expelled from his country as a visionary and seditious, he retired to Medina, where his reputation as an inspired man accompanied him, and where he finally formed his luck.
Skilful and ambitious politician, intrepid and enterprising warrior, despised and feared despot, supreme arbiter of the throne and altar, he then carried out the project already conceived to dominate the world by weapons and religion.
To this end, he took from the religion of the Christians, the Jews and the Arabs, the dogmas and religious practices that seemed more apt for him to win supporters and followers among the nations that professed such religions.
From these dogmas and these uses of existing religions, he formed the basis of the new religion, which he intended to be practiced by his own.
Deceived by appearances and blinded by ignorance, the Arabs thought they would find in the new sect the religion of Abraham and Ishmael, their ancestors. The Jew believed he had the religion of Moses and the prophets, and the Christian ill-educated in his belief thought he would find the substance of the religion of Jesus Christ.
The calculation was well done, although it sinned at the base, lacking truth and sincerity.
In his Qur'an, Muhammad, to better deceive everyone, recognizes by divine the different revelations made, successively, to the patriarchs, to the prophets, and especially those made by Jesus Christ, who he considers a great prophet and great thaumaturge. He gives himself as the greatest of the prophets and assures that the revelations he claims to have received from S. Gabriel are the most perfect of all, which must be adopted, as being the most modern and most certain.
He published the speculative and practical code of this new religion in the absurd, contradictory, pointless and ideal mixture, which is the Qur'an, which he divided and wrote in several chapters, announcing that each chapter had been invisibly brought from Heaven by Archangel St. Gabriel, but without ever giving a sensitive or authentic proof of such a statement.
He persuaded and compelled him to adopt this doctrine with a sword, killing those who raised any doubts, and decreeing the extermination of the peoples who opposed his doctrine.
Such is the author and origin of Islam.
Let us examine this doctrine for a moment. A part of the Qur'an is in conformity with natural law, and therefore with the religion of patriarchs, prophets and Jesus Christ.
Muhammad recognizes the existence and unity of God, the need for worship and a law, the truth of another life, the obligation to practice justice and beneficence towards all men.
It is on this side that he first introduced her, intending to attract without forcing.
Another part of the religion of the pseudo-prophet, the part that characterizes it and makes it a new religion is a ridiculous accumulation of despicable and absurd dogmas, of unworthy and impertinent fables, of gross errors, of ill-arranged impostures, which only fanaticism or a servile fear has been able to make you adopt.
It is possible, perhaps, that for a time, a Mohammedan, who is forbidden by his prophet, to study other religions, finds nothing in his sect that makes him feel his falsehood, thus preserving himself in an invincible ignorance about . Yes, it is possible, however, in this case, this Muslim is in the same situation as any infidel who invincibly ignores the Christian religion: he is outside the path of salvation, but he might not become unworthy of the lights and graces that make salvation possible, leading him, little by little, to the knowledge of the truth.
If, however, this Mohammedan, using his reason, good faith, uprightness of spirit and heart, seeks to learn about the nature and establishment of his religion, it will be easy for him to discover a large number sensitive and plausible reasons that will prove not only that Muhammad's religion does not deserve any faith, but that it is clearly and positively false.
What should he think, reflecting on what history and tradition have kept him about the life, character, morals and ambition of the famous chief Muhammad?
What will he think of the Qur'an, seeing that nothing rational and sensible includes, apart from the small number of speculative and practical dogmas, taken from natural religion, or borrowed from the religion of Moses or Jesus Christ?
What he will think, above all, discovering several compound chapters. purposely by the pseudo-prophet to justify criminal and shameful actions, practiced by him, in the fire of passions, and forbidden by him in other previous chapters?
What will he think of a religion born of corruption and plunder, established by force and violence and perpetuated by ignorance and fanaticism?
It is evident that, in order to give the world a new religion, which is said to emanate from God, it is necessary to have received a divine mission; very notorious and very authentic.
Now, what is the mission Muhammad received?
It was certainly not an ordinary mission, emanating from the ministers of an already established religion, approved by God.
Nor was it an extraordinary mission, authorized by resplendent and authentic miracles, as was the mission of Moses, or that of Jesus Christ!
It is clear from Muhammad's life, tradition, his own words and the text of the Qur'an, that the pseudo-prophet never performed a miracle, neither in public nor in secret.
The religion founded by Muhammad, Islam, is, therefore, a false religion, a religion invented by him, and it is not a divine religion, which can bring us eternal salvation.
The Muslim in good faith must examine his religion, compare it with the religion of Jesus Christ, Catholicism and from this confrontation the light will be born in his spirit to see the error and the truth. And God, who never refuses his grace to souls of good will, will give him the strength to renounce error and embrace the truth, the only truth, which is locked in the religion founded by Jesus Christ and kept pure and intact in the Church too founded by Him: The Catholic, Apostolic, Roman Church.

PJM

* * * 

In this 1. ^the centenary of the proclamation of the "Dogma da Immaculada Conceição" does not seem unreasonable, when closing the book, cite chap. XXI, v. 90, from the Koran, a truly glorious and reverential passage: "Sing the praises of Mary, who preserved her virginity; she and her Son were the admiration of the universe".
(See this book, chap. XIV, page 103) .